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phoenIxThrough the fireRIsIng coo-Ceo-Cs

Features Phoenix Rising is published quarterly or more often by: ON OUR OWN, Box 7251, Station A, Toronto, Ontario, Ca• nada M5W lX9. Telephone: (416) 699• : Exploding the Myth @ 3194, Second class postage No. 5342. Personal Stories 13 EDITOR James Dunn A Discharge Summary 1,6 /"\ ASSOCIA TE EDITOR BUSINESS MANAGER Robbyn Grant Schizophrenia: The Party Line ~ ,/ CIRCULA TION "t,---"",,,/ ,/ Ruth Bartlett EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE Don Weitz Patricia Urquhart Regular Features Connie Neil James Dunn Robbyn Grant Editorial . 2 The opinions of the editorial collective are expressed in the editorial and un• Write-On . 3 signed articles. Other articles, columns and letters to the editor express the 19 views of the writer. What's Happening . We will not accept any advertising Cruel and Usual - CIA and Mind Control . 22 which in any way supports forced drug• ging, electroshock, involuntary con• finement, or 's Profile - . of mental illness. Phoenix Rising reserves the right to edit Friends of Schizophrenics . CJ material submitted. Material should be submitted typed and double-spaced. The Bookworm Turns . Persons wishing to have material return• ed must enclose stamped, self-addressed Phoenix Pharmacy - Modicate . envelope. Copyright© 1983 ON OUR OWN Phoenix Pheathers and Turkey Tail . Printed and published in Canada. Subscription rates: Rights and Wrongs - Refusing Treatment .. Prisoners and psychiatric inmates: FREE while confined. Anti-Psychiatry Bibliography . ON OUR OWN members: $4/year individuals: $6/year;$lO/two years institutions and libraries: $12/year Commentary - Mental Health and OUT OF CANADA Violence Against Women ... ADD $2 MAILING COST.

FEBRUARY ISSUE I.S.S.M.071O-1457 On Our Own

Contributors to Phoenix Rising: Mel Starkman, Carla McKague, John Marks, Ruth Bartlett, On Our Own News 48 Christian Clark, Dr. CaUgari,

Phoenix Rising 3 aJRfLe on

Let us be realistic about schizo• nurtured physically and psycho• NOTE TO READERS: Phoenix Rising phrenia, a so-called . logically, that he b'e encouraged to Perhaps this condition develops because assumes any correspondence sent to us express himself, within socially accep• a person, possibly of a varied rather table limits. As a result, many young may be reprinted in our lellers section than uniform background, reaches a people grow up unable to understand unless otherwise specified. Please tell us point where, having attempted to com• that there are those who have not if you would like your name withheld if municate with those around him, whose always had this support. your letter is printed. Letters 'without life and experiences do not coincide Two generations ago, many of the with his, reverts to living in the only needs of children were not understood names and addresses will not be ac- area available to him, that of the mind in this way. Often, at that time, and cepted. * * * * and his thoughts. still, in many families at this time, Those around him may not realize raising children meant no more than that he was trying to communicate with providing them with very meagre I had an idea that there was a them, but because their own under• necessities of food (not necessarily nu• .magazine for prisoners yet never standing and communication skills were tritious food), and enough clothing to realized there was a publication for not particularly well developed, and ensure the minimal legal requirement of prisoners of the mental health "care" perhaps because they felt they had not being naked in summer, and system. I find myself wanting to side neither the time nor the patience to clothing inadequate for warmth in with the proponents of this magazine attempt to understand him, he was winter. and myself enter the debate. It appears socially cut off. He had nowhere to go A child in any generation who is not clearly, very clearly to me that the but to his own mind. Because there was given basic, necessary, physical nurture system needs a revamping to truly no one who could or would relate to as well as encouragement to grow provide for the needs of the patients, him, he learned to turn to whatever mentally, spiritually, and socially; in but at this point it is more concerned mental resources he possessed, further whose life no one has time to listen to with sustaining the needs of the cutting himself off from the everyday his thoughts; will naturally socialize authorities, the people who are world of reality. Many a small child or within himself. His thought life will be provided with employment to keep such someone of more mature years, has had his only life. Of course, he will be re• activities going. I think the politics this experience. The mind, spirit, quired to obey certain rules governing behind the sustaining of the system are emotions are largely enhanced by social his physical life and his behaviour; he far too complex to enter into lightly, interaction, even in a very simple form. will learn to give certain appearances of but a study of psychiatric patients Mental isolation in a world with people being normal; but to him his real life could reveal a lot of potentially all around us, leads to a reduction in will be his thoughts. Since there is no "dangerous" information. social skills, chiefly language, the one to whom he can communicate those I am a prisoner of Brockville Psy• means of social communication. thoughts, his social life will be his in• chiatric Hospital. Here I have been The condition named schizophrenia mind life. I think it is not unusual that psychologically tortured, beaten, locked and described by , M.D., because this social life is internal, he up and drugged. I find the environ• in his book, "Schizophrenia: The may come to hear, or to think he hears, ment to be anything but conducive to Sacred Symbol of Psychiatry," does a voice or voices in response to what he our mental health. One must be very not come to full maturity overnight. It is thinking. It may even be a mental strong to survive this prison. This occurs in many little instances of repetition of something previously said strength does not come from outside, rejection, perhaps over an entire life• to him. and I myself encourage patients to time. Gradually, even in early child• locate their source or strength. I believe hood, a person realizes that no one is The same can be true of an adult, that only a radical approach will solve interested in his thoughts, and so he and many adults may have been the situation. People must be willing to learns not to express them. This is not moving in this direction for many get out to the media their thoughts and an uncommon phenomenon in our years. The psychiatric profession has beings, to expose the sickness of the society. Many people learn to keep chosen to call (or label) this condition system. It must be dealt with, it cannot their thoughts to themselves because "schizophrenia". In a current news• be left to fester. A cure can come only they know that these thoughts are of no paper article, the writer states that both cause and cure of this disease are with the raising of the public's con• interest to anyone else. I believe that sciousness. the habitual practice of this principle mysteries. And why should they not be Lawrence Alan Evans will, in time, isolate a person from any mysteries? How many people who Brockville, Ontario meaningful social interaction purport to "treat" the "mentally disabled" have personally experienced We know, at this stage in history, the many conditions which are loosely that when an infant is born into the grouped together under the heading of * * * * world, it is important that he be loved, "schizophrenia"? 4 Phoenix Rising

I attended a meeting of the Friends of as well as other symptoms related to the government, it's far easier for them to Schizophrenics Society (F.O.S.S.). As central nervous system. A person who get funding. There is also a new group only half-truths and generalities were has undergone ECT may have the in France called "Le chaval bleu" given by the professional organizers to ability to remember skills necessary for ("The Blue Horse"), in reference to the the attending friends and relatives of living which he was formerly able to one which existed in Trieste, Italy. The so-called schizophrenics, it would perform, but will ruefully realize that International Reseau of alternatives to appear that these organizers were he no longer possesses these skills. It is psychiatry is also regrouping. attempting to manipulate those only by a process of trial and error that The video made at the last attending to aid in the regimentation of he is able to redefine his areas of ability conference (10th Inter.national) is the unfortunate "schizophrenics." and of disability. Brain damage is a finished and now available. It's called These so-called "symptoms" of whole new ball game. It is very "Psychiatry Is Gonna Die", runs 30 "schizophrenia" may be many and depressing to realize that the work you minutes long, is available in 3/4" varied, changing, according to what I put into learning throughout your life colour cassette and costs $120. If some have been taught, to accommodate the has been swept away, that in many groups find this too expensive, there is social system at a given time in history. areas you must learn again, if you can, a possibility of transfer to 1/2" black Twenty years from now, the symptoms an adult body learning at the level of a and white cassette. We would also like will be quite different from what they child. How disconcerting! to obtain permission from the groups are today. Perhaps these symptoms Although I would be the last person involved to enable us to eventually sell may be described as any social activity not to want to help those who have the video. The money from this would which is outside the realm of what been labelled "schizophrenic", I would serve to videotape next year's con- people who consider themselves to be suggest that removing the label and the ference. Paul Morin, normal have experienced. Perhaps in disabling effects of ECT would be a Quebec City, Quebec twenty years you, the reader, will have good first step toward people who, an experience considered to be outside perhaps for many and varied reasons, * * ** the norm, and will be diagnosed as do not live up to a standard designated SPRED (Society for the Protection "schizophrenic." If these symptoms are by some in society to be "normal." It of Rights of the Emotionally Dis• deemed to require treatment; and if you is my understanding that some people traught) is continuing its efforts in the are admitted to one of our "excellent" currently being trained as "mental Niagara Region. Though we have been psychiatric facilities, it may be that you health" professionals have been taught forced into limiting our role as rights will be encouraged to undergo electro• to listen to the point of view of the activists due to a lack of funding, we convulsive therapy (ECT; shock "patient." This is most commendable, still have support networks operating in and I believe the elimination of ECT treatments) because it will "help" you, Niagara, St. Catharines, Weiland and "brighten you up." would enhance the possibility of now Hamilton. The treatments certainly will successfully helping people who have Jean Hamilton with the devoted sup• "brighten you up," if not immediately, somehow, in the corporate mind of port of her husband Doug, have done a then at some time in the future when society, strayed from the beaten track. great job in Weiland building support you realize what has been done to you. The elimination of the scourge of ECT and keeping the lines of communi• According to a doctor quoted in a 1976 would undoubtedly also eliminate the cation flowing with newsletters, supporl edition of the Toronto Star, each shock practice of turning natural and meetings, etc. treatment damages fifty thousand brain psychological problems into a A few of us are now in the market to cells, supposedly not very many. If you permanent physical disability. buy a small hobby farm. It should be a have had twenty-four shock treatments, Cathy Furtenbacher, good experiment in self-sufficiency and then one million, two hundred Hamilton, Onto rural peace of mind. Also, with welfare thousand of your brain cells have been payments lagging behind the rate of damaged, or the equivalent of brain inflation, it certainly could help if damage incurred by a person who has .•.• ¥ ¥ people could come out and grow and been dead drunk (completely uncon• Sorry to have delayed our renewal to store their own food supplies. scious) once a week, every week, for your fine magazine. I'm just back from Shirley and I have been asked if we two years. It is my understanding that a three-week trip to France. I was able would be willing to speak to social the brain consists of approximately ten work students at McMaster University million brain cells. A person who has to go because our group, Auto-Psy, got a $1,000 grant from the Quebec govern• but as of yet no definite plans have incurred damage to over a million is ment. The occasion was a four-day film been made. quite obviously, "not all there." His Recently, I completed work on a mental illness is considered to be "in festival in Nice on "Psychiatry and Culture" from October 27 to 30. Helen couple of fully orchestrated demo tapes his head" and, of course, it is. Where Doyle's latest video production won and have begun promoting them. A else would brain damage take place? first prize. Entitled "Les maux/mots du number of major recording companies The physical results of electrocon• silence", it's theme concerns women, expressed potential interest in previous vulsive therapy (which may also madness and creativity. recordings so it should be interesting to cause damage to the spinal cord leading After Nice I went to Auch, near see what happens. to back trouble) will often cause, in Toulouse. I have friends there who run Music, art, poetry, etc. are great addition to physical brain damage, a house for children with emotional avenues of expression. It's a sad thing other physical symptoms, such as mild problems. There are a lot of these when the inspiration is reduced to a convulsive symptoms or fainting, low houses in France intended for young form of illness and not allowed to grow blood pressure, resulting in a shortage people. It is far better than an institu• and enlighten others, as is the case with of the oxygen supply to the brain, petit tional setting. the talents of so many people today. mal seizures (sometimes only a In Paris, I met people from a new ex• Fred Serafino, flickering of the eyelids caused by too psychiatric inmates' group called Hamilton, Ont. rapid a firing of neurons in the brain), "Treames". With the new socialist * * * * Phoenix Rising 5

• -•. /

EXPLODING THE MYTH

It is time to critically examine some of psychiatry's so• called facts and assumptions about schizophrenia. Basic• ally, we shall challenge psychiatry's application of the medical model to schizophrenia. Specifically, we shall challenge psychiatry's justifications for labeling schizo• BY DON WEITZ phrenia a disease by examining the validity and reliability of some of psychiatry's common diagnostic criteria. In this task, we shall rely mainly on two excellent sources: Schizophrenia: Medical Diagnosis or Moral Verdict by Theodore Sarbin and James Mancuso (1980), and Schizo• phrenia: The Sacred Symbol of Psychiatry by Thomas Szasz (1976). (Sarbin and Mancuso are outstanding re• search psychologists; Szasz is an internationally recog• nized psychiatrist and critic of institutional psychiatry.) 6 Phoenix Rising

For many survivors of the psychia• documented class bias among mental However, in the middle nineteenth tric system, being labeled schizo• health professionals helps to explain century, as psychiatry was beginning to phrenic is like being permanently why proportionately more working be accepted as a medical specialty, psy• damned. Schizophrenia is psychiatry's class or poor people than middle and chiatrists and neurologists changed the equivalent of leprosy. As "schizo• upper-class people are diagnosed criteria for disease. Changes in body phrenics", millions of people have been schizophrenic or psychotic, more fre• structure at the cellular level were no stigmatized and invalidated as non• quently treated with the dangerous longer sufficient. Pathological or ab• persons over the past fifty years or physical therapies such as "anti• normal changes in body function were longer. When labeled, committed to psychotic" drugs and electroshock and added, so that the disease model was and "treated" in psychiatric institu• locked up longer.4 One thing is certain greatly expanded to include "func• tions, most people are just very con• - "schizophrenia" is a very strange tional disease". In other words, non• fused, frightened or angry - not "disease" indeed, since it has no medical behavioral conditions were "sick". Nevertheless, under the banner specific cause, no definite signs or medicalized.6,7 This signalled an of "mental health" or "psychiatric symptoms, no predictable course or ominous change. treatment", such people have often outcome and no cure. Hysteria, for example, is not a been treated against their will and un• The Medical Model physical disease, but it often resembles justly denied their freedom and other or mimics certain "organic" brain fundamental civil and human rights • Brief Historical Sketch symptoms because of the appearance of for their "own benefit". In medicine, a disease or illness tra• anaesthesia (loss of feeling) or paralysis The vast majority of psychiatrists ditionally means a disturbance or set of of the arms or legs in the absence of and other mental health professionals disturbances in the body, not the mind. any brain lesion or neurological dis• sincerely believe there is a "mental ill• In the mid-1800s, the great German order. Charcot, the famous French ness" called "schizophrenia". They scientist and physician, Rudolph neurologist in the nineteenth century, keep telling their patients that schizo• Virchow, discovered and proved that a redefined hysteria (then called phrenia is "just like any other physical disease always involves significant re- "malingering") as "hysterical illness". illness"; that it has recognizable signs Freud later labeled it "hysterical and symptoms; that it can be accurately neurosis" . and reliably diagnosed and treated. At "... more than any other In the middle and late 1800s, the same time, however, these pro• psychiatric diagnostic term, dramatic advances in neurology fessionals openly admit that they still schizophrenia carries with it together with the observation that don't know the cause or cure of schizo• pellagra (a neurological disorder caused phrenia - after almost seventy-five the implication that the person by severe vitamin deficiencies) and years of research. so

First, notice that many of these (b) delusions or hallucinations dity does play its role". Bleuler is not "symptoms" overlap and are repetitive, (c) catatonic or other grossly dis• alone in his ignorance. Hundreds of e.g., "delusional". Secondly, some of organized behavior. 12 psychiatrists and psychologists who these diagnostic criteria were not even It's difficult to believe that these and have investigated schizophrenia over mentioned by Bleuler, e.g., "lack of many other psychiatric terms can pass the last seventy years also don't know insight" or "unwilling to co-operate". the standard tests of clarity, logic, relia• its cause. Thirdly and most important, virtually bility and validity. Of course, they can ,Nevertheless, many different theories not. all of these terms are so vague and am• or hypotheses (probably close to fifty biguous that they can mean almost In 1974, the National Institute of to date) have been proposed and tested anything, which is typical of psychiatric Mental Health (a prestigious, US gov• - more or less. The major types of jargon. For example, what does "lack ernment agency) honestly admitted in theoretical assumptions put forward at of insight" (into what? into whom?) an editorial that schizophrenia could one time or another are: psychological, really mean? Everyone lacks insight or not be adequately defined or sociological, inter-personal or commu• awareness into themselves, others or diagnosed:" ... it is not possible to nicational, physical environmental (in• countless situations sometime. Further• validate a diagnosis of schizophrenia. cluding pollution), familial, dietary or more, what do terms such as "in• nutritional, viral, neurological, genetic adequate description" and "un• and biochemical. willingness to co-operate" specifically "Like the accused heretic, the One major communication theory refer to? Although the WHO inves• accused mental patient com• stated that people become schizo• tigators mention that it's the pattern, phrenic because they receive mixed or and not the single symptom that mits the most deadly sin when contradictory messages from their counts, that doesn't help much either. he denies his illness and insists parents or close relatives to which they It's difficult to seriously accept these that his deviant state is cannot respond without being punished vague and highly subjective terms as or rejected. This is the "doublebind" valid and reliable disgnostic criteria of healthy. Accordingly, the most theory, the "I'm-damned-if-I-do-and• schizophrenia. denigrating diagnostic labels damned-if-I-don't" experience. This The same problem of vague and am• of psychiatry are reservedfor hypothesis stimulated considerable re• biguous language plagues the diag• those individuals who, al• search 10-15 years ago but it's seldom nostic criteria of schizophrenia as stated mentioned today. in the most recent edition of the Diag• though declared insane by the Also worth mentioning is R.D. nostic and Statistical Manual of Mental experts, and confined in mad• Laing's well-known experiential or exis• Disorders published and endorsed by houses, stubbornly persist in tential theory which asserts that schizo• the American Psychiatric Association phrenia is basically a sane response to (1980). According to this standard claiming to be sane. They are an insane world, a survival strategy psychiatric reference, a person is diag• said to be 'completely lacking arising from the person's identity crises, nosed schizophrenic if sl he shows "at in insight, , or described as usually with disturbed family members. least one" of these criteria or Although this theory challenged psy• symptoms: 'having broken with reality, , chiatry's traditional disease model of (1) bizarre delusions (content is and are usually diagnosed as schizophrenia, Laing and other "anti• patently absurd) and had no pos• psychiatrists" stili wrote as if schizo• sible basis in fact, such as de• 'paranoid' or 'schizo- phrenic. ' " phrenia exists and can be diagnosed lusions of being controlled, and treated (in the community rather thought broadcasting, thought in• -Dr. Thomas S. Szasz than a psychiatric institution). 14 sertion, or thought withdrawal; The Manufacture of Within the last five or six years, bio• (2) somatic, grandiose, Madness (1970, pp. 52• chemical and genetic hypotheses have religious, nihilistic, or other delu• sparked more research interest. How• sions without persecutory or jeal• 53) ever, because of the lack of substantial ous content; scientific evidence, they remain only (3) delusions with persecutory or guesses, wild guesses. jealous content if accompanied There is no test which can indepen• The so-called orthomolecular theory, by hallucinations of any type; dently confirm that the individual so for example, aroused some interest in (4) auditory hallucinations in designated is, in fact, schizophrenic" Y the 1960s and 1970s. Investigators such which either a voice keeps up a There is stili no independent or valid as psychiatrists Abram Hoffer and running commentary on the indivi• diagnostic test of schizophrenia, even Humphry Osmond confidently claimed dual's behavior or thoughts, or with the assistance of the WHO's "psy• that schizophrenia is a "physical di• two or more voices converse chopathological characteristics" or the sease" caused by a "metabolic error" . with each other; APA's "diagnostic criteria". How• This defect, probably inherited, (5) auditory hallucinations on seve• ever, this fact hasn't stopped psychia• causes the production of a poison• ral occasions with content of more trists from diagnosing people "schizo• ous substance that affects his brain than one or two words, having no phrenic" . and creates marked disturbance in apparent relation to depression or Theories of cause - The perception and radical changes in elation; Search For The Schizo· thought, personality, and beha• (6) incoherence, marked loosening vior.ls of associations, markedly illogical phrenic Agent The "scientific evidence" has not thinking, or marked poverty of Kraepelin speculated that "dementia been impressive. In fact, in 1973, the content of speech if associated praecox" was caused by a "metabolic hyper-conservative AmericanPsychia• with at least one of the following: disorder" or some sort of infection. tric Association challenged or discred• (a) blunted, fiat, or inappropriate Bleuler admitted he didn't know the ited many of Hoffer and Osmond's affect cause but guessed that perhaps "here- claims. 16 Phoenix Rising 9

The dopamine (DA) hypothesis has tific evidence of a genetic cause of agree on which items of conduct are to also stimulated particular interest schizophrenia. In the late 1930s and be classified as 'psychotic symptoms' ". among biological psychiatrists and early 1940s, German psychiatrist Franz Perhaps psychiatrist Manfred Bleuler pharmacological researchers. Dopamine Kallman carried out studies on the (son of Eugen Bleuler, inventor of is a natural chemical in the brain, a incidence of schizophrenia in identical schizophrenia) says it best when he con• "neurotransmitter" which is known to ("monozygotic") and fraternal ("dizy• cludes: speed the flow of nerve impulses to cer• gotic") twins. Kallman tried to prove ... all the somatic theories of tain motor areas of the body. Very that schizophrenia was inherited and schizophrenia are open to most simply, the hypothesis states that pointed to the alleged fact of a 400/0• serious criticisms from biologists schizophrenics suffer from "too much 50% "rate of concordance" in his ... It seems not to be good medi• dopamine" which somehow causes identical twin subjects, as compared to cal policy to maintain that schizo• their "psychotic" behavior or "schizo• a 5%-10% rate in the fraternal twins. phrenia is a symptom of a soma• phrenic" symptoms. Reducing the In other words, if one identical co-twin tic disturbance, if one cannot dopamine level in schizophrenics had schizophrenia, there's a SO/50 demonstrate this somatic distur• should, according to the theory, make chance the other twin would also have bance ... 20 them feel better, perhaps eliminate their ·it. However, if schizophrenia is truly an Treating the Untreatable "symptoms". This hypothesis arose inherited condition, then the "rate of The "treatment" of schizophrenia from psychopharmacological research concordance" in identical twins should remains inconclusive and contro• which showed that "antipsychotic" be 100% Most investigators have found versial, to say the least. There is still no drugs such as chlorpromazine (Thora• much lower rates. In fact, they have "cure", although some psychiatrists zine) blocked dopamine. The apparent so far failed to discover a genetic ex• claim that certain treatments give re• relief brought by these drugs, it is planation for schizophrenia. Never• lief, if only temporary, to their reasoned, is due to their "dopamine• theless, in a critical review of the litera• patients. Bleuler recommended re• blocking" action. However, the re• ture, one investigator concluded that creation and outdoor exercise, but he search evidence for the DA / schizo• what's probably inherited is a "vulnera• wasn't sure either worked. Metrazol phrenia connection is at best "indirect" bility ... (or) capacity for schizo• convulsive therapy, insulin coma and and "scant". 17Another investigator is phrenic illness," which says little if sub-soma therapy, electroshock, hydro• more blunt in concluding that "no bio• anything. 19 Of course, all this genetic therapy, lobotomy or psychosurgery, chemical lesion has been demonstrated research may be irrelevant, since it's megavitamin therapy, various types of beyond doubt to be linked to schizo• useless to talk about the elimination of psychotherapy and "chemotherapy" phrenia".18 "psychotic" or "schizophrenic" have all been used at various times to There is also little or no solid scien- symptoms if investigators "cannot first "treat" "schizophrenia" with little or 10 Phoenix Rising

no success. With just about any of psychiatric procedure called psycho• and epilepsy. Like electroshock, psychO• these treatments, one-third get worse, surgery (previously called "lobotomy"). surgery "works" by causing brain one-third show no change and one• This brain~mutilating "treatment" damage and permanent emotional and third show "improvement". However, consists of the deliberate destruction of intellectual impairments. Psycho• "improvement" is so poorly defined in healthy brain tissue or certain nerve surgery is still being done in the United psychiatric research and practice that pathways in various parts of the brain. States (about 500 a year) and other it's become as meaningless as most The most common effect of psycho• countries, including Canada, where it's other psychiatric terms. surgery is the flattening or "blunting" usually covered up or simply not re• "Chemotherapy" - the drugging of of virtually all feelings and emotions. ported in the literature. Since 1978, the people with "antipsychotic" or neuro• According to psychiatrist Peter R. Mental Health Act has outlawed the use leptic drugs - has been the most Breggin, an outspoken opponent of of psychosurgery in Ontario for common treatment for schizophrenia psychosurgery and electroshock, the "involuntary patients". But who would and other "psychotic" conditions massive effects of psychosurgery are voluntarily consent to this medically during the past twenty-five years. The horrendous: sanctioned murder of the mind or soul? powerful neuroleptic drugs such as ... global psychological losses in Note: Also see P.R. Breggin, "The Thorazine, Stelazine, Mellaril, Haldol all the higher human functions: ab• Second Wave" in S. Hirsch et al. and Moditen or Modicate (Prolixin in stract reasoning, judgement, in• Madness Network News Reader (Glide, the US) are assumed to be effective in sight, imagination, creativity, emo• 1974, pp. 89-95), and The Crazy from lessening or eliminating some schizo• tional sensitivity, moral awareness. the Sane (Lyle Stuart, 1971). phrenic "symptoms". However, these (Electroshock: its brain-disabling Electroshock ("ECT") is still being drugs have caused their own disorders effects. Springer, 1979, p. Ill) widely used as a treatment for schizo• or illnesses (psychiatry calls them "side phrenia, although it is more frequently effects", medicine calls them "iatro• administered for depression and other genic"). Tardive dyskinesia (T .D.) is "affective" disorders such as "manic• probably the most serious effect of "The so-called symptom of depressive psychosis". Like insulin such drugs; it's a grotesque disorder of schizophrenia is what happens shock, electroshock is also dangerous. the central nervous system (brain It is common knowledge that' electro• damage) and is generally permanent. to us when the perceptions we shock frequently causes permanent loss Since the prevalence of T.D. is ex• have of our environment are of memory and impairments of other tremely high (25070 ro 50070in various attacked and ignored and intellectual abilities. It always causes patient populations), it is justifiable to some degree of brain damage.24 A speak of a T.D. epidemic, particularly denied over and over again. recent report by four investigators from in North America and Europe where Ironically, our perceptions are Toronto's Clarke Institute of these drugs are frequently prescribed.21 accurate. Even after we are Psychiatry shows that over a 16-year The phenothiazine drugs (Thorazine, terrorized, drugged or social• period (1966-1981), 37070 of people etc.) are also responsible for causing diagnosed as schizophrenic were given many deaths.2Z Under these circum• ized out of expressing our• electroshock. Much lower percentages stances, the "cure" is worse than the selves directly we do it sym• were reported for other hospital and "disease" . bolically and the feelings are national populations of schizophrenics: For almost thirty years, insulin 17070 in the USA (based on the AP A (appropriately given to diabetics only) right. I believed as a child that Task Force Study, 1978); 13070 in Great was also administered (usually forcibly) my soul had been stolen from Britain; 21070 in Veterans' Adminis• to thousands of schizophrenic inmates its rightful body, that my real tration hospitals in the USA. It should in the 1930s and up to the 1960s. also be noted that on the average the Insulin coma therapy or sub-coma parents lived on a satellite of Clarke schizophrenic patients were insulin treatment was once considered Betelgeuse. That was not an given a longer course of shock to be the "treatment of choice" for insane delusion. It was a treatments than most other psychotic schizophrenia. It should be pointed out patients. (10 vs. 8). 25 that insulin coma treatment consists of poetic and actually logical way a series of deliberately induced comas to handle the unliveable en• which invariably cause some degree of vironment that I had the ill The Denial brain damage. This dangerous shock fate to be born into. " treatment, invented by psychiatrist - Manfred Sake! in the early 1930s, was The Medical Model assumed to be effective through its On OUf Own (1978, alleged capacity to destroy the "hyper• p.113) "Crackup" active" or "diseased" nerve cells, Psychiatry's use of the medical• which Sakel believed were a major Former psychiatric disease model is not only inappropriate cause of schizophrenia. Insulin shock inmate but irresponsible and unscientific. As caused many serious complications Szasz has repeatedly asserted, "there is including death. It was finally banned no such thing as 'mental illness'." in most psychiatric institutions by 1970, Psychosurgery has been performed on What psychiatry has labeled as 'mental because the "safer, easier ... and less thousands of "schizophrenics" as a last illness" or "symptoms of mental costly" phenothiazine drugs were avail• resort, frequently after all other psy• illness" are actually types of conduct able.23 chiatric "treatments" have failed to which violate or threaten a social norm During the past 40-45 years, people bring "improvement" or conformity. or moral value. In this light, according diagnosed as schizophrenic. particularly However, psychosurgery has also been to Sarbin and Mancuso, schizophrenia "chronic schizophrenic," have also been performed on many other types of con• is essentially "rule-violating" conduct subjected to the dangerous, experimental ditions, including neuroses, alcoholism or "unwanted behavior". Phoenix Rising 11

Take hysteria, for example. Szasz is the obvious vagueness and ambiguity "thud", yet all gave truthful accounts points out that people labeled "hys• in the so-called diagnostic criteria of of their own family histories. Three to terical" (usually women, which reveals schizophrenia. four weeks later, most of the pseudo• the traditional sexism in psychiatry) The classic study by Rosenhan in patients were released and all were generally show a lot of helplessness, 1973 clearly and dramatically exposed given the discharge diagnosis of powerlessness and manjpulative the subjectivity and bias inherent in psy• "schizophrenia in remission", which behavior, which js essentially aimed at chiatric judgement. The study caused a meant the psychiatrists believed they getting other people to take care of minor uproar within the psychiatric es• were still schizophrenic. (One pseudo• them or give them what they want. tablishment. patient was on a locked ward for 52 However, this behavior is not an days - many others were drugged. indication or symptom of "mental As if having admitted sane people to illness" - it's just behavior which is psychiatric institutions and diag• damn annoying to other people. By " 'Schizophrenia' is a strategic nosing them as schizophrenic wasn't bad having redefined or interpreted hysteria label, like "Jew" was in Nazi enough, the psychiatric staff were as a form of mental illness - thanks further embarrassed to discover that largely to Charcot and Freud • Germany. If you want to ex• many of the real inmates sensed or psychiatrists felt justified in "treating" clude people from the social knew that the pseudopatients were it by hypnosis or psychotherapy. order, you must justify this to faking mental illness - the staff didn't. The situation is similar to other non• others, but especially to your• Another embarrassment awaited the medical but disturbing conditions, in• staff at another "research and teaching cluding everyday emotions. In the self. So you invent a justifi• hospital". Rosenhan simply announced hands of psychiatrists, they all get catory rhetoric. That's what to one staff member that sometime pathologized: sadness is diagnosed "de• the really nasty psychiatric within a 3-month period, one or more pression"; joy is diagnosed "mania"; of the pseudopatients would try to get excitement is diagnosed "euphoria"; words are all about: they are admitted to his institution. The staff anger is diagnosed "hostility"; justificatory rhetoric, labeling were sure they'd be able to detect any eccentric behavior is diagnosed a package 'garbage'; it means pseudopatient which Rosenhan sent "neurosis", and non-conformist them. A total of 193 patients were behavior is diagnosed "schizophrenia". 'take it away!' 'get it out of admitted to the psychiatric institution Sarbin and Mancuso rightly point my sight!' etc. That's what the during this follow-up period. One psy• out that "unwanted behavior" has word 'Jew' meant in Nazi chiatrist diagnosed 41 or 21070 as been cast into the medical-disease pseudopatients "with high model of schizophrenia. However, the Germany; it did not mean a confidence" , another psychiatrist medical model, based upon the Person with a certain kind of diagnosed 23 or 12% as pseudo• mechanistic world view of direct cause• religious belief It meant patients, and still another psychiatrist and-effect, was never meant to explain 'vermin!' 'gas him!' I am "suspected" 19 or 10% as pseudo• "norm-violating behavior". By mis• patients. Actually, not one pseudo• appropriating the medical model and afraid that 'schizophrenia' and patient came to the hospital during this imposing it upon social or moral 'sociopathic personality' and period. behavior, psychiatry has seriously dis• many other psychiatric diag• One of Rosenhan's major conclu• torted and strained the model. Within sions is most relevant: "It is clear that psychiatry and other mental health pro• nostic terms mean exactly the we cannot distinguish the sane from the fessions, this has led to widespread con• same thing; they mean 'human insane in psychiatric hospitals. ,,28 fusion, embarrassing contradictions and garbage,' 'take him away!' Labeling people "schizophrenic" or major inconsistencies in diagnosis and 'get him out of my sight!' "psychotic" is a stigmatizing act. research, and the "literalization" of Sarbin and Mancuso aptly describe the concepts or metaphors, Le., the belief -Dr. Thomas Szasz psychiatric diagnostician as a "stig• that "mental illness" or "schizo• "Interview with matician", partly because psychiatrists phrenia" actually exist as disease Thomas Szasz" in label people "mentally ill" or "schizo• entities.26 Further, as a psychiatric phrenic" in the absence of clear, strict weapon, the disease model of The New Physician and scientifically supported criteria, schizophrenia has been used to justify (1969, p. 460) and partly because many diagnostic locking up and forcibly treating people terms have acquired negative meanings. against their will, thereby denying many "Paranoid schizophrenia", for people their freedom and other legal or In the study, eight normal healthy example, is generally considered to be constitutional rights. people posed as psychiatric patients or the most stigmatizing or damning diag• Psychiatric Diagnosis as "pseudopatients". The "pseudo• nosis in psychiatry. It is no exag• Moral Judgement - The patients" consisted of a psychiatrist, geration to assert that people labeled three psychologists, a psychology schizophrenic suffer the same sort of Diagnostician as graduate student, a pediatrician, a stigma and invalidation as the Jews ex• Stigmatician painter and a housewife. When these perienced in Nazi Germany where they It is a well-known fact thatpsychia• pseudopatients presented themselves at were forced to wear badges labelled trists rarely agree on a diagnosis, inside twelve different psychiatric institutions ,JEW'. It should also be pointed out or outside a courtroom. In various on the east and west coasts of the that it is psychiatry, not the public, studies (summarized by Sarbin and United States, they were promptly which is chiefly responsible for creating Mancuso), a number of investigators admitted and diagnosed as and maintaining the stigma associated have shown that psychiatric judgements schizophrenic. During the admission with "mental illness" in general and are notoriously invalid and ume• examination, all pseudopatients told the "schizophrenia" in particular. As many presently incarcerated and former liable.27 Of course, part of the problem psychiatrists that they heard voices like - 12 Phoenix Rising

psychiatric inmates know all too well, techniques have been uncritically if there is no psychiatry, there can be the power to label and treat people applied to clinical and social situa• no schizophrenia."33 Schizophrenia is a against their will is the power to tions.3o myth, a very dangerous myth oppress and stigmatize them - usually In addition, the basic assumptions of masquerading as disease. Doctors who for life. most researchers are often hidden, such treat myths or non-existent diseases are It's also important to realize just how as one which states that people charlatans or quacks. easily psychiatrists and other mental diagnosed as schizophrenic .are Schizophrenia has been used by psy• health professionals can be influenced inherently "flawed". The main but chiatry to degrade, humiliate, stigma• by social or political factors in making hidden assumption that schizophrenics tize and invalidate people as non• their diagnoses. In a major study by will invariably "perform more poorly" persons. Braginsky and Braginsky (summarized than others can easily become a self• Schizophrenia has been used by psy• by Sarbin and Mancuso), professional fulfilling prophecy in research. Another chiatry to manipulate and control staff members were asked to diagnose serious methodological weakness in people. ~rious psychiatric inmates on the basis schizophrenia research is the failure to Schizophrenia has been used by psy• of what they said during videotaped in• specify which item of behavior or task chiatry to forcibly treat and incarcerate terviews. Some inmates voiced 'New is related to which variable or non-dangerous people who have Left' political views, others openly criti• "symptom". Further, the concepts committed no criminal acts. cized the staff, while others compli• used in psychological research are Schizophrenia has been used by psy• mented or praised the staff. Those rarely, if ever, clearly defined and chiatry as a justification to deprive inmates who criticized the staff were specifically related to general people of their freedom and other civil typically judged as more psychological theory. Sarbin and or human rights. "pathological" than those who didn't; Mancuso point out that less than one• Schizophrenia has been used by psy• the 'New Left' inmates were also third of the studies they reviewed (100 chiatry to stifle or invalidate legitimate judged sicker than those who didn't out of 374) "show any effort to link political dissent by medicalizing such express this ideology. "The most spec• any psychological malfunctioning to dissent as "symptoms of mental tacular change" in professional judge• one or another of the behaviors that illness" or "psychosis" . ment occurred when one "very dis• lead a person to psychiatric referral.3l Schizophrenia has been used by psy• turbed mental patient was suddenly Sarbin and Mancuso raise a number chiatry to deceive the public into be• perceived as ... normal" after he of important questions which remain lieving that strange, non-conformist praised the staff. 29 unanswered by research. For example: conduct or unpredictable outbursts of It is now clear, according to Sarbin, "How do strange, illogical or anger are "symptoms of mental illness Mancuso, Szasz and other psychiatic uncommon associations handicap and dangerousness". critics, that "schizophrenia" is actually people? How do they result in getting Schizophrenia has been used by psy• conduct that differs from or violates people into hospital? Why does over• chiatry to discredit people, (parti• certain moral standards and that psy• generalization lead to faulty con• cularly the poor) by labeling their chiatric diagnoses are moral judge• clusions and why are faulty conclusions conduct "sick", "pathological" or ments of such conduct. If this is so, on labeled delusions? Everyone over• "deviant" according to middle-class what basis or by what authority are generalizes. Everyone draws faulty con• standards of morality. psychiatrists empowered to make these clusions, but not everyone is judged de• Schizophrenia has been used by psy• judgements? lusional or schizophrenic. ,,32 chiatry to give credibility to its illegi• Psychological Studies Summary - Conclusions timate and unscientific applications of of ... the medical-disease model. ? - Implications Schizophrenia and similar diagnostic Impairments in attention and After critically examining various concepts in psychiatry must be exposed thinking have not been as frequently research findings and informed and challenged for what they are: found in schizophrenics as generally opinion, we must conclude that there is unethical or illegal attempts to socially assumed or predicted by theory. For no such disease or mental illness called control or punish non-conformist example, investigators have found "schizophrenia". Psychiatry's conduct and to invalidate people who attentional disturbances in various diagnostic concept of schizophrenia assert their individuality and human samples of both schizophrenics and does not meet the standard criteria of rights. "mixed" neurotics. Perceptual weak• disease in medicine. Psychiatry's illegi• nesses or "cognitive deficits" have just timate and irresponsible use of the been assumed, mainly because many medical-disease model of schizo• See notes on page 42. people diagnosed as schizophrenic gene• phrenia, the alarming lack of clarity, rally take longer times to respond to the validity and reliability of the diag• various test stimuli or tasks. Sarbin and nostic criteria of schizophrenia, and the Mancuso list the major criticisms of the many contradictory and inconclusive "attention deficit" studies, which could findings in psychological and medical easily apply to most other psycholo• research justify our rejecting the gical research into schizophrenia: I. psychiatric concept of schizophrenia. The techniques used are complex and Schizophrenia is actually a ill-defined; 2. As an independent euphemism or metaphor for non• variable, schizophrenia is confounded conformist behavior or "unwanted by hospitalization effects (i.e. length of conduct" which violates or threatens incarceration, effects of drugging); 3. certain moral values. Like many many Different intellectual skills interfere other psychiatric terms, schizophrenia with differentiating schizophrenics from was invented by psychiatry. As Dr. non-schizophrenics; 4. Many findings Thomas Szasz has asserted, are contradicted; 5. Lab-based "Psychiatry creates schizophrenia ... Phoenix Rising 13 peRsonal sLoRfes

"I've always had people telling me what to do:"

I woke up one morning, and my oldest son had gone into Two people who have been my housecoat pocket, had gotten the aspirins, and all three of the kids had taken them. I rushed to the hospital. After diagnosed as "schizophrenic" that I started hearing voices really bad. Everywhere I went I was hearing voices-loud, loud voices. I came back, phoned talk about their "schizophrenia" the Children's Aid, and asked them to come take my kids because I was sick and had to go to the hospital. They as a response to a society that wouldn't come. robs them of their autonomy. My voices were telling me that someone was trying to break into the house. (Somebody was trying to break into the INTERVIEWS BY ROBBYN GRANT house. The police caught him after I was in the hospital.) I KAREN phoned the police who came over several times, but found no To understand schizophrenia you practically have to be one. The last time they came I was standing at the front door schizophrenic yourself. Nobody knows how you feel. You with a butcher knife in my hand, and they took me to the feel different from other people. The symptom my schizo• hospital. The Children's Aid sent a worker to look after my phrenia takes is mostly hallucinations. I hear voices. They kids, but the place I lived in wasn't fit to live in, so they took say that they are just my own thoughts, but some of the my kids. That was 15 years ago. things the voices tell me are true. They'd tell me things that I I went into the hospital then for three weeks. At that time never knew about before. They'd tell me things that were they diagnosed me as schizophrenic, but I didn't know what really happening. Like the time they told me someone was that meant. After three weeks they said that I was just about trying to break in, and they were. cured, that I was well, and that I could go home without any I was first diagnosed as schizophrenic when I was twenty• medicine or doctor's appointment or anything. three. I was living with my husband, and I had three kids My mother took my oldest son, and the Children's Aid who were aged 3 years, 18 months, and 8 months old. They took the two younger ones. I went to live with my mother were all in diapers, and I washed diapers day and night. My and my son and got a job in Towers. After I had lived with husband was late paying the rent every month. The landlord my mother for a while, my son and I went back with my got fed up, and one day came and demanded his rent. I husband. He got a job, but was still drinking. One weekend didn't know where my husband was, and I didn't have the he didn't come home, so I packed everything and moved out. money, so he kicked us out. I had three little kids, I didn't Then I got a flat with my son, and I kept him there for a know where my husband was, and I had to move in three couple of months. The Children's Aid said that I could have days. my kids back if I could find a place to live (I had applied for We left the furniture there, just took a few clothes, and Ontario Housing but never got it). So I got a three-room moved in with a friend. In a couple of weeks we got an flat. It was very small. There was just enough room for a apartment. I was just shaking and nervous all the time pull-out bed couch in the living room and the kitchen was so because the kids were running around, and I was trying to tiny. I plastered and painted it. I was on Welfare and they let keep them quiet-it was a flat, there were people downstairs, me take the kids home. We were all fine for about a month. and I couldn't keep them quiet. I got my notice after I was But the people downstairs drank a lot, and when my hus• there for two weeks. band came over to see the kids he'd go there and drink. Then my husband came and moved me to a place on I didn't drink at all. I was very nervous. I was on no medica• Ontario Street. It was terrible. There was literally an inch tion at all then. The people downstairs didn't have a phone thick of dirt on the floor. I tried to clean up the place, but it and kept coming up in the middle of the night to use ours. was impossible. My husband went on booze, and he was Finally I moved out of there. I decided that I didn't want gone. I started hearing voices again. I didn't know that they anything to do with my husband. This is what the Children's were voices. I thought I was just reading the mind of the lady Aid told me to do. They advised me to bring up the kids on next door-that I could hear what she was thinking. my own and not let him see them. I began going out with a 14 Phoenix Rising

man who I later discovered was married, so I broke off with I was very depressed when I left, being on the me

it, leave home. Finally I had a bout with my mother when I And now I'm thirty-six, and I don't know how to think. If was about thirty-eight years old, and I packed up and moved they had ever let me think for myself, make my own decisions, then I would have been able to learn to think for out. Got my own place. I've completely cut myself off from my family now because they only undermine my myself. It handicaps me being treated like I'm not capable. It independence and want to tell me what to do. I've been on makes me feel like I'm not capable. my own ever since, and I'm doing very well although it's The three years I spent in Whitby didn't do me any good, hard to forget about the past. not one bit. I was isolated, locked away. When I got upset or I think that's true for all the disabled, especially the men• said how I felt, they'd lock me up in the quiet room, which is tally ill. We're lied to and generalized about by the doctors about 3 feet by 6 feet with a bare floor, and shut the door. and social workers as well as our parents and the society in When I got back to the boarding home and back to Toronto general. The social workers and doctors told my parents that and back to seeing people that I cared about, then I began to I couldn't do anything, that I'd always have to be taken care get better. If you want someone to have self-respect you of. It feels like a triumph to me to have overcome and over• must treat them with respect. Not getting that respect is a lot thrown the messages of failure that were foisted on me all my of what can drive a person "mad." (Karen Jones) life. I'm surviving now and doing fine. I have problems 00000000000 sometimes but I can cope. My problem was being put down JOHN and told that I couldn't do anything. When you get put I am forty-four years old. I was first diagnosed as a schizo• down enough you begin to believe those messages and, when phrenic in the 50s. My symptoms were that I seemed to be in you begin to believe that you are incompetent then you act a world of my own, withdrawn and staring at things. I lost that way. my mother when I was four, and I was passed around to When people believe you are handicapped either physically aunts and uncles quite a bit. Then finally, when I was about or mentally, they treat you that way and it's crippling. I just ten, my father married again. My parents were very domin• want the right to live my own life the way I want to, and I eering. They have tried to run every aspect of my life, even respect the rights of others, too. Queen Street is nothing but as an adult, from my job to how I dressed and where I lived. a jail, and that doesn't help. Public attitude towards schizo• When I was about sixteen, I was taken to the Toronto phrenics has to change too. People have to be allowed and and diagnosed as a schizophrenic. They encouraged to be as independent as possible. kept me in the hospital for three months, but they didn't do Being schizophrenic means to me that you are different. I anything for me. Finally they let me out. When I was about forget that I've done little things sometimes, and I talk to eighteen I got a job at Loblaws', and later I got a job as a myself and people make remarks, and it makes me embar• floor boy. At about twenty years of age, I went into printing rassed. I feel different, I also feel like a "normal" human which I didn't like, and I wanted to get out of it, but my being in society, but when people know that you've had a parents kept pushing me to stay in. They were constantly nervous breakdown they think you are second-class. You're telling me what to do, even on my job. They didn't respect made to feel that you can't do things, that you are nothing. my privacy. They thought I was too secretive; I thought they And so I feel second-class a lot of the time, even though I've were prying. I didn't want to answer all their questions. proven that I can do things. I've held responsible positions, Finally I got to be manager of the printing department. I and for the last six years I have lived entirely on my own and worked there for fourteen years. My mother did everything have taken care of myself. I can cope and deal with life. I've for me, so that now it's more difficult to learn to do things learned to be an assertive and effective person. I've won the for myself so late in life. I've seen psychiatrists and family battle. (John Bedford) service social workers, and they didn't offer much help. They even put me down and said that I couldn't do anything and that I knew nothing. I got the same thing from my parents. They all said that I couldn't take care of myself. I think that having the doctors label me as a schizophrenic gave my parents an excuse for treating me as if I was helpless. My father was unhappy because I didn't become an engin• eer or a university graduate. But I'd be unhappy doing that. I wanted to do something with my hands. I'd like to have worked with furniture or making patterns in a foundry. But my parents always put me down for the things I wanted to do. They never considered my likes and dislikes. They want• ed me to live my life their way. I never got any support for the things I wanted to be. At times I just turned inward and began staring at the closed door and that sort of thing. When I was a kid I didn't have anyone to go to with the things I felt. I was alone and isolated with them. All I could do was go for walks. I did talk to my minister and started going to his church, but they started trying to run my life. I don't know if I'm schizophrenic or not, but the medical profession labelled me that, and my parents told me that too. The psychiatrists and social workers would interview them before me. They took away my autonomy and right to speak for myself. My parents were always contradicting and dis• counting what I said and felt. It's been a struggle for me all my life not to allow people to boss me and own me, and to develop some sense of autonomy without alienating people, and now I'm tired. My doctor and the social worker I was seeing and even the personnel manager at work all agreed that I should get out of 16 Phoenix Rising

Excerpts from the Discharge Summary of Don Weitz: McLean Hospital 1951-1953 (unedited)

In 1950 the patient first sought psy• into his condition and would ask temper tantrums he would be chiatric help because of his inability to questions such as, "How sick am I destructive of furniture in his room, select a vocation. He was seen in the really?" He gave the impression of and he implied that nobody loves him Cleveland Jewish Vocational Service extreme anxiety and tension. His talk and that his future is hopeless. He and it was apparent that a vocational was rapid, a little overactive, but was constantly tried to be the center of choice was impossible because of severe coherent. He was upset with the idea of attention with the nursing staff and the emotional conflicts. Prior to this the his own failure, with a hopelessness of medical staff. He was untidy about his patient had finished a year at it all, and was acutely aware of the clothes and personal hygiene and when Dartmouth where he had some feelings great distance between his ideals and seen in psychotherapy he went into long of depression and wanted to leave, but goals and his present achievement level. dissertations about his past and the he was not able to admit to himself that Much of his time was spent in fantasy injustices which his parents had he could not work through the life where he imagined himself to be a perpetrated on him. The patient was problems. great composer, such as Beethoven, or finally placed on sub-coma insulin and The patient finally saw Dr. Greta a great artist or genius. He was also after a month of sub-coma insulin three Bibring in Boston, where she aware of the fact, however, that he times a day, he showed tremendous recommended that he enter the Austin projected his feelings and attitudes improvement in his general over-all Riggs Foundation where he was towards others, particularly towards his picture. There was no longer the admitted March 31, 1951; he was parents, and he stated that they did not outbursts of temper and he showed discharged November 6, 1951. The bring him up as well as they should much better social relationships with psychological test reports at the Austin have and that they were probably sick other patients and nursing staff. He Riggs Foundation revealed insiduously themselves. He has never shown any was finally discharged from the hospital developing schizophrenic processes far evidence of hypochtondriasis or hallu• on February 2, 1953 at which time he enough progressed so that the patient cinosis. His retention memory and enrolled in the Boston University in was regarded as schizophrenic on his orientation and recall are all adequate. order to complete his college work. admission there. Chief diagnostic On his psychological reports here in the indication was his fluidity or confusion hospital, he showed a verbal IQ of 140, of thinking, combined with marked performance of 119; and a full IQ of fragmentation of thoughts. Fluidity 132. During the Wechsler-Bellevue test, manifests itself in a relatively frequent he showed a low frustration level; he inability to maintain a frame of set goals too high and expects reference, starting point and direction. perfection in his performance. On his Fragmentation manifests itself in Rorschach and TAT tests, it was spasmodic, incomplete, perseverative noticed his rigidity and his inability to verbalizations such that it often seems adjust to new situations, to modify his that he is unable to let go of an idea or ideas and to accept suggestions. He word and unable to develop it further. depends greatly upon his superior In this fragmentation there are obvious intellectual endowment but this does manifestations of obsessional trends. not function adequately in emotionally Perfectionism, extreme doubting with charged situations. The specific types of transient paralysis of thought. The situations in which his emotions are obsessional character features show overwhelming are those concerned with rigidity, repression, and isolation of a his parents, sexual matters, or personal reaction formation against hostility failure. The patient has very certain were evident along with interlying negative ideas concerning his parents, regressive turning to an old passive his solution to his parental problems feminine mode of object relationships. seems to be to get away from them; in Anger was directed against himself for other words, to avoid the problem. his own failings. While at the Austin Regarding his sexual adjustment, there Riggs, he showed many violent mood are indications that he is unsure of his swings and outbursts of temper and it role and he cannot accept his aggressive was felt that he would do better at a feelings concerning sex. Thus, he is closed hospital and the patient was confused and bewildered in this sphere. transferred to the McLean Hospital on During the first few weeks in the November 6. 1951. hospital, he showed characteristics of When he was admitted. to this hysteria, temperment, and confusion hospital, he had considerable insight about himself. From time to time in his Phoenix Rising 17

Reactions to and Translation of My Discharge Summary

BY DON WEITZ Boston, the teaching-research hospital with my life, where 1 was going, and for Massachusetts General Hospital and what 1 wanted to be. These I was very lucky to get a copy of the Harvard University Medical School. fundamental human issues or problems discharge summary from my psychiatric Although the discharge summary were interpreted as "symptoms" of records at McLean Hospital. A psychia• states that I was a voluntary patient "schizophrenia" by psychiatrists at trist in Toronto helped me get the copy. and insane, I was neither. In fact, my both Austin Riggs and McLean Although I wanted a copy of my entire parents and/or sister, with the help of a Hospital. file, it was never mailed. Psychiatric psychoanalyst at the Austin Riggs inmates and ex-inmates, as well as Foundation, involuntarily committed For example, how or why is medical patients, are still legally denied me. Furthermore, 1 never considered "fluidity" in thinking or "inability to the right to see, copy or correct their myself "schizophrenic" or "sick" • maintain a frame of reference" an indi• medical or psychiatric files in Canada just angry. 1 was becoming more cation or "symptom" of "schizo• and the United States. The only way openly resentful and rebellious toward phrenia"? Shifting or flexible frames of you can get a copy of your records is my parents and the upper middle-class reference or perspective can just as through a sympathetic doctor or values and life style they represented easily be interpreted as indications of lawyer, and then only a small part of (which they tried to impose upon me), indecisiveness or even creativity. And your records is available. The hospital and I deeply resented being locked up how does "fragmentation ... unable owns your medical records. against my will in a "closed hospital" to let go of an idea or word and unable It's often maddening but enlightening (psychiatric prison). Sure, I was angry to develop it further ... " indicate to read what your doctor or shrink has as hell and started throwing around and "schizophrenia" or sickness? And written about you in your file, because breaking furniture in my room at notice the clarity and precision in other it's typically full of many serious dis• McLean's, an indirect and safer psychiatric terms such as "obsessional tortions, omissions and lies, as well as expression of my fury. The psychia• character", "repressive", "isolation of the usual psychiatric jargon which very trists minimized and dismissed my a reaction formation against hostility", few people can understand. I'm con• anger. They never saw it as legitimate, or "regressive turning to an old passive vinced the vast majority of psychiatrists assuming I should accept my parents' feminine mode of object use arcane, pseudo-medical language to values, and so they never addressed the relationships." To top it off, the mystify people, to conceal their real reasons and causes behind it. psychiatrist who examined me admitted feelings and intentions from inmates In the discharge summary my 1 never hallucinated; there was also no and their families, and to convince psychiatrist implies that I have "nega• clinical or test evidence of delusions, themselves and the public that they're tive ideas" about my parents and that both of which are common being professional or scientific. my solution to "avoid" my parents is a "symptoms" of "schizophrenia". After years of thinking it over, 1 symptom of my "illness. " As a matter Furthermore, I'm convinced the real finally decided to publish parts of my of fact, my decision to live apart from reason 1 was given insulin shock ("sub• discharge summary for the chief my parents has proved to be a very sane coma insulin ") was to stop my re• purpose of exposing and demystifying and constructive solution. bellious, non-conformist or disturbing the psychiatric bullshit written about I insist I never admitted that I was behavior on the ward. Insulin shock me and other people who have been "sick", although my psychiatrist chose succeeded in stopping this behavior • diagnosed and "treated" against their to interpret my question, "How sick temporarily. will. am I really?" to mean that I believed or Just before the insulin shock treat• Like millions of other sane but angry accepted this diagnosis. I simply asked ments started, my psychiatrist gave me people, I was once labelled "schizo• that question at the time because I absolutely no explanation or justifi• phrenic", psychiatry's equivalent of seriously doubted that I was "sick" in cation for such treatment. Insulin medicine's leprosy. "Schizophrenia" is the medical sense of the term and shock "worked" by terrorizing me into the most damning swear word in because I was justifiably worried that becoming a co-operative and con• psychiatry; you're not supposed to the shrinks would label me "insane", formist patient. This is a classic recover from "schizophrenia", there's which of course they did. example of the real but hidden purpose no "cure". It all happened 30 years ago The psychological test results as of all psychiatric institutional "treat• when I was 21. stated in the discharge summary are ment" - social control by fear. Since 1 In 1951, I was involuntarily com• good examples of psychiatric or stopped being so angry or rebellious mitted to McLean Hospital, a psychoanalytic bullshit. In reality, 1 was after insulin shock, 1 was labelled prestigious private psychiatric in• just damn angry with my parents, con• "improved". stitution, a few miles outside of fused as hell about what I wanted to do 18 Phoenix R'lSlng,

BYi~:&:~~~~ophreniaM¢II'S~~~·~~ mentalllln.SS. ,,"MU9h ilmaybB '- ..~: •.S. Ih.S. anll_PSychOIIC ..".. lat.nt .or long periodS.\Iis a SOV- "",,'0,1011Is ala". ,,"li.' ••04" ~.v.nt .ullh.r atla~ .r. psychosiS wh.n tully d.- Ih'S,lIn.ss ,I'IS commonlyabOUI il la~·n prophy.acl,callY ,n v.loped. PsychosiS is lhO modi- bod,lychanges or pers.c. :IionbY ,ad.qual. dosag·· Unlort~na\OlY. cat wOid which roUghlycorres- olher.: It '5 common tor pali.nts thOY do produce unple.sanl pondS 10 thO lay words "crozi- 10 mlS,"l.rpr.1 the words or ec- side-.\I·c\S lor which."'la mod'-, ~ ness" or "madnesS". \Ionsot olhers. b.li.vlng IhallheY calion maYbe necessal'i' Ohis mness 10001commonlY are p.rsonally aimod 'I th.m- AlthOUgh lhOr• "ave been a"octs young peoPI. between \ 5 selv.s: th.se are called IdeaS or claims lhOl vllamln tr.almonl ·Is aed 30 y.ars o. age althOUgha ,e'.renceS. us.·u •• "", •• claims l\IIve not childhOodtormis se.n and itmay Du"n~ an allac~ ot schiZO- been supported bY,ndependenl also appear lal.r in adull II••. It ~hren," ,t 15common tor the pa- r.searc""rs OCCursin all races. in allcultur.s• \lent to ••• i a vari.ty ot mood~ persons, s,utter\n~. tr~~ In all social class•s and in bOlh ,"e1ud,ng.anxiely. ang.r. bewil schiZOp~l.nla .n lhO chronIC .•••x••. __ derment.loy and sadn.sS. Thes sta Whal.caus.s schizophr.nia is moods maybe unusual eilherbe- hav~·· an.r th nut dehn,l.ly ~nown bul most cause Ih.y occur wilh or.at in- unple SUbside• acut. C,n adla n psy chratrl515 nOw tens,ly or because th.y occur oul as asant 10d. Olt.n sYmptc a~r•• Ihal il is basically a 01Ihe blue and are not relaled to Th.;nxi.ty COdchasuiter fr::"' blOChem.caid.sorder ot Ihebrain. anything else Ihe e' dors, • often and d nges su 10 />Jso.thOmaiorltynow agree I al Ihinking aboul so'::e rson IS Plicauandabt.r.flect p:pr.sSio ch wlnerabililY10Ih. illneSSis inh- have dilliculty' d',st',n9 ~ehop'e fear oO,n,s0' threa~onsrfectly un. ~ao" It'"' h t"" .~ t UIS 10(" b In a III to th n· .'!"""'" a •••oug, ••.. , anlasy trom r.ality;th.y spend ~ reakd sanily n."". • im- cill uncl.a,: MostauthOritieS9300"0""nCYN gr.al deal of .h.ir lim. da _ Ureandowns•an' f.ar a ,,"cn " dlSagr•• w,lhthose whOconsld•r dr.aming and may start 10 bY_ helped self-b/a d f•• lingf funh.r scrnzophr.nic pSYChOSiSan un- 1I.v. their daYdr.ams.• anu-anXiby anur::· Th.y s of fai~ d.rstandaOIe r.sponse 10sev.re Wh.n th.se symploms sr. In- It is i ely dro ·pre •• may be slr.ss. Ha•.•.'.r. symplOmSmay t.nse Ih. iIln.sS is d.scrib.d as cOverinmPDrtanfS. anI and gal worse whOn lhO pati.nl is "acut. schizophrenia". Th•• 5- adequaf from sc fhal pe ops.'. in particular wh.n Ih.r. is sential Ir.atment tor Ihls is anli~- Icationab· pSYChIuZOPhr:Ple re- yr.al t.nsion in the hOmo. sycholiC m.dicalion and Ih. henSiv. v out Ihei Olherap hla gel One at the ,ascinaling aspects drugScommonlyused in Canada habditauoOCallon~'Unessy~ edu- 01seNZOphr.niais hCYNdiv.rselY ar.: C '"Ospilal. n "'pen n and ;"'ind in- it pr.senls. Indeed. the .arly .tC)' hforprom h orIrsho grooA ecossar al re- symptoms ar. onen minor be- Tria' Thiorldaz ezlne (lar .tpful af,°f!Porttntherap y. Day haviOUralor .motional chang.s aZinooperazlnef". (M.llerllgeCUI. a Throughh,s Ume't'es ar: and .imilar 10 those commonlYso.n >(Trll:; .'c.), iSt.'azl".· .,C.); la~eed for:;Ofth. iif onen In the slr.sstul y.ars ot adol.s- can on); F" P.rph •••• So~ de 'Iy. to k arefulli ne"" fh ",M •. Th. illneSScannol be dO- (Or~'e (Mod~Ph.naZln nazlne Ireal Wifh eep the,:',;on Wi::;· is linil.lydiagnosed untilmore seri- aio·' lo ?l'.); ·1'1~,l·- rei 55 - any COn ,nform the auS symptoms app.ar _ th.SO (Nav erldol (Hal~n•• (lox zlcf'-- mentegrauo'Oa,,!'istseqUenled..10 :ncIodOlhOughl disord.r• ~ Flo ane.; 0 01' Thio apac); Ih,,"'ber. n offile them in d,s- ~. &.as 01rOl~halluci- p~~nt"ol spmlen. fh,..n. f,,? .~py"'a On oc<:':hlZOPhr the ])!!!2Ilf. 2'!~arili.S ~mOod and asalionw ss,az,n.and (Pf~FloanxoIP"'ap):th e the p 'al,z- ~'l!c"e helpf~on"" ~rt fromfa eOlcny Il!!!" realityt.stin~: ~ distr. may relle~rtlt). HoSp'tand ~. andm'::dY dl I _ ellas h e'fam'I' atienl' ."n- 'ThoUghldisord•rIs a s or tile beSId elp Illed 'y. a""je s SchiZOphr.nia is not thO- banco ollh. conl.nu'lYollhlnl

lacl .xiel. trUly\)OII""Ingthat h~ 9fv.~ec'al menll cale are wnx0 • seems partlCUiarlylruslrat,ngone LtaSI•shaS hadsomethingl"iS \h01.,p.".nCdoes nol•. .nn colarOf." as_ long-aMod:Po~ •.as Fttheyorthyoa az'ne , .vencan b.whOnhOll·tulthe cOUrsoof a goodo'.illn.Sslong- schizophr.nia the hOllucmal",n15 paU.nlfOUrw,n/.ctionsIllen la~ Clingmay intrabe';: are10 I.rmc••••.outcome·••.•••• •• •••••••. . 2501oron\ORellised•.,..- M511R8March 1982 __ . --""mmonlYtha' o' ""aong a VOlce-,- reliablee.ks._____s neglectTh~talastings.lakawhichonmanymo.-ore Jc_..••••.10"'•••••••••••••••••••••••su'" fRC'""'(CI••• Phoenix Rising 19 aJbaL/S happeolog

name, to answer questions generally and to remember exactly the date of his last interview some fourteen A victory for months earlier. Dr. McCreary records a number of spelling failures. I felt his approach to the examina• tion to be tendentious and unsympathetic. human rights The testimony of Justin's friends, on the other hand, Judge Matheson called "noteworthy for insight, approach It was a victory on November 25 for handicapped and/or and commonsense ... Justin has the great gift of friend• institutionalized people everywhere when cerebral palsy ship ... I see his extraordinary gifts of sincerity, trust and victim Justin Clark was declared mentally competent and free cooperation conjoined with his helpfulness as assets in any to live his own life. The decision handed down by Judge L' Arch type community, and one such is now operated by John Matheson followed over a year of legal skirmishing and Normand Pellerin (in Ottawa)." - the judge's pleas and all other efforts toward an out-of• The final judgment lay with Judge Matheson, whose words court settlement failing - an internationally broadcast six and are as consistently outstanding as his a half day trial in Perth, Ontario. Ronald Clark of Ottawa, Justin's father, initiated the case by seeking an application to declare his 20-year-old son mentally incompetent so that a legal guardian - probably his parents - could be put in charge of his affairs. Justin sought instead the independence to make fundamental decisions about his own life and, in particular, to choose to leave the Rideau Regional Centre where he has lived since he was two and to seek a more in• dependent and full life at a group home run by a friend and special education teacher in Ottawa. Justin Clark's courageous appearance in Lanark County courthouse was only the most recent of his efforts to gain autonomy, respect and experience as an individual. For example, David Baker, Executive Director of the Advocacy Resource Centre for the Handicapped (ARCH) and Justin's lawyer, pointed out that just last year, although the Rideau staff had felt Justin capable of deciding in favor of a trip with three others to Quebec City, his father had judged otherwise and permission was refused at the last minute. Until recently, Justin's parents had not visited or answered letters from their son for sixteen years. In court, too, authorities brought by the prosecution sought to invalidate Justin's claim to both mental competence and personal maturity. Justin responded to the examination and testified in his own defence using the Bliss communication system that he has been taught since he was twelve by his friend and teacher Carol MacLaughlin. Judge Matheson commented sardonically on the quality of the medical evidence marshalled against Justin: Considering that a young man had only commenced to communicate at thirteen years of age and had lived in the society of seriously retarded patients at Rideau on the multiphasic unit all his life, is it reasonable that he should be exposed to vocabulary tests which distinguish serpent from snake, cascade from waterfall or faucet from tap? It would seem to me as reasonable to test Tarzan's intelligence by tests appropriate to the envir• onment of Jane. Nor are tests which depend in large measure upon muscular dexterity appropriate for a person so grossly disabled with cerebral palsy. It seems from the evidence that Dr. McCreary's lengthy exami• nation was a physically painful ordeal for Justin ... He reports Justin's ability to write and read his own 20 Phoenix Rising

Sir William Blackstone in Book the First of Commen• But to the victors, it was a symbolic initial victory in what taries on the Law of England stated in 1809 that the they hope will become a nationwide attack on what they term principle aim of society is to guard and protect indivi• a "barbaric" practice that they believe does more harm - to duals in the proper exercise of their individual rights. body and spirit - than good. Such rights be characterized as absolute. I believe a "I think it's great," said Ted Chabasinski, 45, a coalition courageous man such as Justin Clark is entitled to take a leader who received several years of shock treatment when he risk. was young. "What kind of a way is that to treat human With incredible effort Justin Clark has managed to beings? How can permanent brain damage make people feel communicate his passion for freedom as well as his better?," love of family during the course of this trial. We have To the psychiatrists, it was a troubling vote of no• recognized a gentle, trusting, believing spirit and very confidence, a triumph of fear and ignorance over reason and much a thinking human being who has his unique part medicine. "It is what I call pathological consumerism," to play in our compassionate interdependent society. Rubinstein said. "The city of Berkeley has once again So, in the spirit of that liberty which Learned Hand besmirched itself!" tells us seeks to understand the minds of other men, and But the issue goes beyond shock treatment itself. For what remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth un• might be the first time in U.S. history, the residents of a heeded, I find and declare Matthew Justin Clark to be community have stepped into the field of medicine to rule a mentally competent. specific medical treatment out of bounds. These are heartening words, and action, in these none-too• For that reasen, the medical community in California and heartening times. Our best tribute is to take courage' from acrOSs the nation has been stunned by the vote and is them that the labeling and denial of rights that still frustrate mobilizing legal challenges to have it overturned. A suit is the lives of all handicapped people are, increasingly, giving expected to be filed in California next week that will contend way to respect and recognition for the wonder and living that the state, not voters by direct vote, has pre-eminent reality that each "Justin Clark" can be - and is. powers of licensing and control in medical matters. But for now, the psychiatrists are, to put it mildly, Psychiatrists "shocked" by the landmark decision. are ~~shocked" The Case of By STEVE TWOMEY Knight-Ridder News Service Eldon Hardy The end was near. The voters had interfered, but Dr. Martin Rubinstein was still at it. He would get in all he Like thousands of other psychiatric inmates, Eldon Hardy could. is a victim of Ontario's "mental health system." Eldon has Just that morning - Wednesday - he had driven from been locked up and abused for roughly eleven years-ten his office in nearby Oakland to Herrick Hospital here to do years in Penetang (Oak Ridge) and fourteen months in Tor• it once more, to one more patient: inject the sleeping drug, onto's Queen Street Mental Health Centre. Since last Sept• attach the wires, send the electricity coursing through the ember, Eldon has been incarcerated in Queen Street's medium patient's brain, induce the convulsions. , security unit, which is more oppressive than METFORS Certainly it seemed an unpleasant and even cruel treat• (Queen Street's forensic unit run by the Clarke Institute of ment, he acknowledged. But it was necessary for the Psychiatry) where he was locked up for the previous ten patient's well-being, he insisted; it makes the depressed less months without any fresh air, exercise or outdoor recreation. so. (Even prisoners in solitary or maximum segregation are al• In fact, it was done 485 times at Herrick last year, to 45 lowed thirty minutes a day of outdoor exercise.) patients. Perhaps they even ought to do it more. "I think In 1972, Eldon was charged with two offences, committing electro-shock is underutilized," he said. buggery and indecent assault on a boy. Instead of being sen• And then he became angry. tenced to prison (in which case he would have been released Because starting Saturday, Rubenstein's professional in about three years), Eldon was sentenced to Penetang thoughts will not count for much. Starting Saturday, Herrick under a Warrant of the Lieutenant Governor, which legally Hospital will not be able to use electro-shock even once a allows the government to imprison any person indefinitely year, let alone 485 times. Starting Saturday, it will be a crime after they've been judged unfit to stand trial or not guilty by for any doctor to shock any patient in Berkeley. reason of insanity. (For a discussion of the injustice of this For, in this university community famous for its anti• warrant, see prison issue no. 1, no. 2.) At that time, Eldon establishment ways, it is the patients and the people who was judged not guilty by reason of insanity. However, ac• have,shocked the doctors, at the polls. cording to at least three psychiatrists who examined him Led by a coalition of social activists and former mental within the last year and testified at his eleventh Advisory patients, many of whom had received shock treatment, the Review Board hearing in November of 1981, Eldon is sane. voters of Berkeley last month overwhelmingly approved an Furthermore, two senior psychiatrists in METFORS wrote initiative banning such treatment at Herrick Hospital, the essentially the same thing in an official report last spring. only facility in Berkeley that provided it. While locked up in Penetang, Eldon suffered many physi• Actually, the vote will have little practical effect. Any psy• cal and psychiatric abuses including forced drugging. In the chiatrist in Berkeley who believes a patient is so depressed summer' of 1981, he laid twenty-six criminal and civil charges and suicidal that shock therapy is necessary can easily obtain against the Penetang staff including staff psychiatrists. To it at Providence Hospital in Oakland, or Walnut Creek date, these charges have been blocked by the criminal justice Hospital in Walnut Creek or St. Francis Hospital in San system. In addition, the administration of 'Queen Street,' Francisco, across the bay. Rubinstein, in fact, already has particularly Administrator Michael O'Keefe, has consistently started making arrangements to shift some of his patients. and unreasonably refused to release Eldon during the day, Phoenix Rising 21 despite the fact that a change in Eldon's warrant last spring during the day. A group of Ministry of Health officials, has allowed 'Queen Street' to release him during the day for Administrator Michael O'Keefe and Queen Street's Medical rehabilitation purposes-to get a job or enrol in an educa• Director, Dr. Andrew Malcolmson, opposed Eldon's release. tional program in the community. Eldon read out a personal statement which was favorably Eldon's twelfth Advisory Review Board hearing was sched• received. uled for November 25th but it was postponed, because the It's anyone's guess when the Board will notify Eldon and Board (chaired by Justice Edson Haines) claimed it needed his lawyer of its decision-it could be months. (The Board more recent psychiatric assessments on Eldon. The board hears complaints or appeals from inmates under warrant for apparently didn't approve of Eldon's refusal to talk with any criminal behaviour; inmates under warrant are allowed only psychiatrists in 'Queen Street' a few months prior to the one hearing a year. There is no appeal of the Board's hearing; however, it had already received favorable reports decision.) about Eldon from the psychiatric staff in METFORS within the last six months. The hearing finally took place on Dec• ember 20th; it lasted over eight hours. Eldon's lawyer, John NOTE: We urge people wishing to support Eldon Hardy to Gorman, ON OUR OWN member and Alderman David sign a petition in the ON OUR OWN drop-in. If you wish to Reville and Ontario Liberal Party health critic Sheila Copps visit Eldon in Queen Street, please call first: 535-8501, loc. 127 were there to support Eldon':-they recommended that he be and leave your name and phone number so Eldon can call transferred to an 'open' ward where he could be released you back. Thanks.

Here is Phoenix Rising's revised and updated list of Canadian psychiatrists Littman, S.K. Clarke Institute of who administer or authorize shock Psychiatry, Toronto, ant. treatments. Listed psychiatrists who no longer use ECT, or who have been mis• McFarlane, W.J.G. Riverview Hospital, takenly included in the list, may ask Port CoquitIam, B.C. Phoenix Rising to remove their names. Mitchell, Wallace. Greater Niagara Shock doctors General Hospital, Niagara Falls, ant. If you, a member of your family, or a friend, have been shocked by a Cana• up to date Pankrantz, Werner John. Lions Gate dian doctor and want his/her name Hospital, North Vancouver, B.C. added to our list, please send us the Peacocke, J .E. Clarke Institute of doctor's name and hospital affiliation. Psychiatry, Toronto, ant. We will of course withhold the inform• Pivnick, Bernard E. St. Joseph's & ant's name, but doctors' names sub• University Hospital, London, ant. mitted anonymously will not be in• cluded. Giles, Charles. Alberta College of Phys• Plumb, Lois. Women's College Hospital, Toronto, ant. Allodi, Federico. Toronto Western icians & Surgeons, Edmonton, Alta. Hospital, Toronto, ant. Gray, Trevor A. St. Michael's Hospital, Rapp, Morton S. Sunnybrook Medical Toronto. ant. Centre, Toronto, ant. Ananth, Jambur. McGill University Rejskind, Mojzesz. Clarke Institute of School of Medicine, Montreal, P.Q. Gulens, Vlademars, Jr. Chodoke• Psychiatry, Toronto, ant. Arndt, Hans. Northwestern Hospital, McMaster Hospital and St. Joseph's Toronto, ant. Hospital, Hamilton, ant. Rodenberg, Martin. Kingston Psychia• tric Hospital, Kingston, ant. Boyd, Barry. Penetanguishene Mental Haden, Philip. Kingston Psychiatric Health Centre, Penetanguishene, ant. Hospital, Kingston, ant. Roper, Peter. Douglas Hospital, Montreal, P.Q. Brawley, Peter. Toronto General Hos• Heath, David S. Kitchener-Waterloo pital, Toronto, ant. Hospital, Kitchener, ant. Shugar, Gerald. Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Toronto, ant. Conn, Bert. Belleville General Hospital, Hoffman, Brian. Clarke Institute of Belleville, ant. Psychiatry, Toronto, ant. Sim, David G. Hamilton General Hospital, Hamilton, ant. Cornish, David. Alberta Hospital, Jeffries, Joel. Clarke Institute of Edmonton, Alta. Psychiatry, Toronto, ant. Solursh, Lionel. Toronto East General Hospital, Toronto, ant. Eades, B. Riverview Hospital, Port Jenney, Leslie. St. Joseph's Health Stevenson, Cameron M. Kingston Coquitlam, B.C. Centre, Toronto, ant. Psychiatric Hospital, Kingston, ant. Eastwood, M.R. Clarke Institute of Kolivakis, Thomas. McGill University Zamora, Emil. St. Joseph's Hospital, Psychiatry, Toronto, ant. School of Medicine, Montreal, P.Q. Hamilton, ant. Furlong, F.W. Sunnybrook Medical Lehmann, Heinz. Foothills Hospital, Zielonko, Walter. Guelph General & Centre, Toronto, ant. Calgary, Alta. St. Joseph's Hospital, Guelph, ant. 22 Phoenix Rising cRaeL ann asaaL The CIA and Mind Control The mountain, named Mont Royal, loomed high above BY JOHN MARKS Montreal. She stumbled and staggered as she tried to climb higher From time to time little snippets of information come to and higher. Hospital staff members had no trouble catching her the surface about the case of Val Orlikow, wife of Winnipeg and dragging her back to the Institute. In short order, they shot MP David Orlikow, who was brainwashed in a Montreal her full of sedatives, attached electrodes to her temples, and gave her a dose of electroshock. Soon she slept like a baby. hospital under an experimental program funded by the U.S. Gradually, over the next few weeks, Lauren G. began to func• Central Intelligence Agency. tion like a normal person again. She took basket-weaving therapy Last year Phoenix Rising reported (Kids and Psychiatry and played bridge with her fellow patients. The hospital released issue, Vol. I, No.2) that Mrs. Orlikow had accepted $50,000 her, and she returned to her husband in another Canadian city. and costs in an out-of-court settlement of her lawsuit against Before her mental collapse in 1959, Lauren G. seemed to have everything going for her. A refined, glamourous horsewoman of the Royal Victoria Hospital. She is also suing the CIA itself 3D, whom people often said looked like Elizabeth Taylor, she had for $1 million, and so are four other Canadians treated at the auditioned for the lead in National Velvet at I3 and married the Allan Memorial Institute, a separate wing of the Royal rich boy next door at 20. But she had never loved her husband and Victoria. had let her domineering mother push her into his arms. He drank heavily. "I was really unhappy," she recalls. "I had a horrible In 1973 the CIA destroyed several key documents in an marriage, and finally I had a nervous breakdown. It was a com• attempt to thwart research being done by the American bination of my trying to lose weight, sleep loss, and my nerves." writer John Marks. However, under the newly-passed The family doctor recommended that her husband send her to Freedom of Information Act, Marks was able to prevent the Dr. Cameron, which seemed like a logical thing to do, considering his wide fame as a psychiatrist. He had headed Allan Memorial shredding of further documents and gain access to a since 1943, when the Rockefeller Foundation had donated funds to mountain of material - some 16,000 pages of classified set up a psychiatric facility at McGill University. With continuing information about the CIA's experiments in mind control help from the Rockefellers, McGill had built a hospital known far and "psychological torture," as it was described in court. beyond Canada's borders as innovative and exciting. Cameron was The full story of what happened to Val Orlikow, and to so elected president of the American Psychiatric Association in 1953, and he became the first president of the World Psychiatric Assoc• many others, will probably never be told. But this is as close iation. His friends joked that they had run out of honors to give to it as we have seen - reprinted by permission of the him. publishers Cameron's passion lay in the more "objective" forms of therapy, with which he could more easily and swiftly bring about Call her Lauren G. For 19 years, her mind has been blank about improvements in patients than the notoriously slow Freudian her experience. She remembers her husband's driving her up to the methods. An impatient man, he dreamed of finding a cure for old gray stone mansion that housed the hospital, Allan Memorial schizophrenia. No one could tell him he was not on the right track. Institute, and putting her in the care of its director, Dr. D. Ewen Cameron's supporter at the Rockefeller Foundation, Robert Cameron. The next thing she recalls happened three weeks later: Morrison, recorded in his private papers that he found the psy• They gave me a dressing gown. It was way too big, and I chiatrist tense and ill-at-ease, and Morrison ventured that this may was tripping over it. I was mad. I asked why did I have to account for "his lack of interest and effectiveness in psycho• go round in this sloppy thing. I could hardly move because therapy and failure to establish warm personal relations with I was pretty weak. I remember trying to walk along the hall, faculty members, both of which were mentioned repeatedly when I and the walls were all slanted. It was then that I said, visited Montreal." Another Rockefeller observer noted that "Holy Smokes, what a ghastly thing." I remember running Cameron "appears to suffer from deep insecurity and has a need out the door and going up the mountain in my long dres• for power which he nourishes by maintaining an extraordinary sing gown. aloofness from his associates." The psychological torture of ValOrlikow Phoenix Rising 23

When Lauren Go's husband delivered her to Cameron, the psy• just got up on my hind legs," she states. "I said the hell with it. chioatrist told him she would receive some electroshock, a standard I'm going to do what I want and take charge of my own life. I left treatment at the time. Besides that, states her husband, "Cameron and started over." Now divorced and remarried, she feels she has was not very communicative, but I didn't think she was getting been happy ever since. anything out of the ordinary." The husband had no way of Cameron's depatterning, of which Lauren G. has a compara• knowing that Cameron would use an unproved experimental tech• tively mild version, normally started with 15 to 30 days of "sleep nique on his wife - much less that the psychiatrist intended to therapy." As the name implies, the patient slept almost the whole "depattem" her. Nor did he realize that the CIA was supporting day and night. According to a doctor at the hospital who used to this work with about $19,000 a year in secret funds. administer what he calls the "sleep cocktail," a staff member woke Cameron defined "depatterning', as breaking up the existing up the patient three times a day for medication that consisted os a patterns of behavior, both the normal and the schizophrenic, by combination of 100 mg. Thorazine, 100 mg. Nembutal, 100 mg. means of particularly intensive electroshocks, usually combined Seconal, ISO mg. Veronal, and 10 mg. Phenergan. Another staff with prolonged, drug-induced sleep. Here was a psychiatrist willing doctor would also awaken the patient two or sometimes three times - indeed, eager - to wipe the human mind totally clean. Back in daily for electroshock treatments. This doctor and his assistant 1951, ARTICHOKE's Morse Allen had likened the process to wheeled a portable machine into the "sleep room" and gave the "creation of a vegetable." Cameron justified this tabula rasa subject a local anesthetic and muscle relaxant, so as not to cause approach because he had a theory of "differential ," for damage with the convulsions that were to come. After attaching which he provided no statistical evidence when he published it. He electrodes soaked in saline solution, the attendant held the patient postulated that after he produced "complete amnesia" in a down and the doctor turned on the current. In standard pro• subject, the person would eventually recover memory of his fessional electroshock, doctors gave the subject a single dose of 110 normal but not his schizophrenic behavior. Thus, Cameron volts, lasting a fraction of a second, once a day or every other day. claimed he could generate "differential amnesia." Creating such a By contrast, Cameron used a form 20 to 40 times more intense, state in which a man who knew too much could be made to forget two or three times daily, with the power turned up to ISO volts. had long been a prime objective of the ARTICHOKE and Named the "Page-Russell" method after its British orginators, this MKULTRA programs. technique featured an initial one-second shock, which caused a Needless to say, Lauren G. does not recall a thing today about major convulsion. and then five to nine additional shocks in the those weeks when Cameron depatterned her. Afterward, unlike middle of the primary and follow-on convulsions. Even Drs. Page over half the psychiatrist's patients, Lauren G. gradually recovered and Russell limited their treatment to once a day, and they always full recall of her life before the treatment, but then, she re• stopped as soon as their patient showed "pronounced confusion" membered her mental problems, too. I Her husband says she came and became "faulty in habits." Cameron, however, welcomed this out of the hospital much improved. She declares the treatment had kind of impairment as a sign the treatment was taking effect and no effect one way or another oh her mental condition, which she plowed ahead through his routine. believes resulted directly from her miserable marriage. She stopped The frequent screams of patients that echoed through the seeing Cameron after about a month of outpatient electroshock hospital did not deter Cameron or most of his associates in their treatments, which she despised. Her relationship with her husband attemptes to "depattern" their subjects completely. Other hospital further deteriorated, and two years later she walked out on him. "I patients report being petrified by the "sleep rooms," where the

N/\i.....) IIV) A D,)//jv\...-IU/"\R AHHH. 24 Phoenix Rising

treatment took place, and they would usually creep down the intensified the negative effect by running wires to their legs and opposite side of the hall. shocking them at the end of the message. Cameron described this combined sleep-electroshock treatment When Cameron thought the negative "psychic driving" had as lasting between 15 to 30 days, with some subjects staying in up gone far enough, he switched the patient over to 2 to 5 weeks of to 65 days (in which case, he reported, he awakened them for three positive tapes: days in the middle). Sometimes, as in the case of Lauren G., You mean to get well. To do this you must let your feelings patients would try to escape when the sedatives wore thin, and the come out. It is all right to express your anger ... You want staff would have to chase after them. "It was a tremendous to stop your mother bossing you around. Begin to assert nursing job just to keep these people going during treatment," yourself first in little things and soon you will be able to recalls a doctor intimately familiar with Cameron's operation. This meet her on an equal basis. You will then be free to be doctor paints a picture of dazed patients, incapable of taking care a wife and mother just like other women. of themselves, often groping their way around the hospital and Cameron wrote that psychic driving provided a way to make urinating on the floor. "direct, controlled changes in personality," without having to Cameron wrote that his typical depatterning patient - usually a resolve the subject's conflicts or make her relive past experiences. woman - moved through three distinct stages. In the first, the As far as is known, no present-day psychologist or psychiatrist subject lost much of her memory. Yet she still knew where she accepts this view. Dr. Donald Hebb, who headed McGill's was, why she was there, and who the people were who treated her. psychology department at the time Cameron was in charge of psy• In the second phase, she lost her "space-time image," but still chiatry, minces no words when asked specifically about psychic wanted to remember. In fact, not being able to answer questions driving: "That was an awful set of ideas Cameron was working like, "Where am I?" and "How did I get here?" caused her with. It called for no intellectual respect. If you actually look at considerable anxiety. In the third stage, all that anxiety disap• what he was doing and what he wrote, it would make you laugh. If peared. Cameron described the state as "an extremely interesting I had a graduate student who talked like that, I'd throw him out." constriction of the range of recollections which one ordinarily Warming to his subject, Hebb continues: "Look, Cameron was no brings in to modify and enrich one's statements. Hence, what the good as a researcher ... He was eminent because of politics." patient talks about are only his sensations of the moment, and he Nobody said such things at the time, however. Cameron was a talks about them almost exclusively in highly concrete terms. His very powerful man. remarks are entirely uninfluenced by previous recollections - nor The Scottish-born psychiatrist, who never lost the burr in his are they governed in any way by his forward anticipations. He lives voice, kept searching for ways to perfect depatterning and psychic in the immediate present. All schizophrenic symptoms have disap• driving. He held out to the CIA front - the Society for the peared. There is complete amnesia for all events of his life." Investigation of Human Ecology - that he could find more rapid Lauren G. and 52 other subjects at Allan Memorial received this and less damaging ways to break down behavior. He sent the level of depatterning in 1958 and 1959. Cameron had already Society a proposal that combined his two techniques with sensory developed the technique when the CIA funding started. The deprivation and strong drugs. His smorgasbord approach brought Agency sent the psychiatrist research money to take the treatment together virtually all possible techniques of mind control, which he beyond this point. Agency officials wanted to know if, once tested individually and together. When his Agency grant came Cameron had produced the blank mind, he could then program in through in 1957, Cameron began work on sensory deprivation. new patterns of behavior, as he claimed he could. As early as 1953 For several years, Agency officials had been interested in the in• - the year he headed the American Psychiatric Association • terrogation possibilities of this technique that Hebb himself had Cameron conceived a treatment he called "psychic driving," by pioneered at McGill with Canadian defense and Rockefeller which he would bombard the subject with repeated verbal money. It consisted of putting a subject in a sealed environment • messages. From tape recordings based on interviews with the a small room or even a large box - and depriving him of all patient, he selected emotionally loaded "cue statements - first sensory input: eyes covered with goggles, ears either covered with negative ones to get rid of unwanted behavior and then positive to muffs or exposed to a constant, monotonous sound, padding to condition in desired personality traits. On the negative side, for prevent touching, no smells - with this empty regime interrupted example, the patient would hear this message as she lay in stupor: only by meal and bathroom breaks. In 1955 Morse Allen of Madeleine, you let your mother and father treat you as a child ARTICHOKE made contact at the National Institutes of Health all throu~h your single life. You let your mother check you with Dr. Maitland Baldwin who had done a rather gruesome ex• up sexually after every date you had with a boy. You periment in which an Army volunteer had stayed in the "box" for hadn't enough determination to tell her to stop it. You never 40 hours until he kicked his way out after, in Baldwin's words, stood up for yourself against your mother or father but "an hour of crying loudly and sobbing in a most heartrending would run away from trouble ... They used to call you fashion." The experiment convinced Baldwin that the isolation "crying Madeleine." Now that you have two children, you technique could break any man, no matter how intelligent or don't seem to be able to manage them and keep a good re• strong-willed. Hebb, who unlike Baldwin released his subjects lationship with your husband. You are drifting apart. You when they wanted, had never left anyone in "the box" for more don't go out together. You have not been able to keep him than six days. Baldwin told Morse Allen that beyond that sensory interested sexually. deprivation would almost certainly cause irreparable damage. Leonard Rubenstein, Cameron's principal assistant, whose Nevertheless, Baldwin agreed that if the Agency could provide the entire salary was paid from CIA-front funds, put the message on a cover and the subjects, he would do, according to Allen's report, continuous tape loop and played it for 16 hours every day for "terminal type" experiments. After numerous meetings inside the several weeks. An electronics technician, with no medical or psy• CIA on how and where to fund Baldwin, an Agency medical chological background, Rubenstein, an electrical whiz, designed a officer finally shot down the project as being "immoral and in• giant tape recorder that could play 8 loops for 8 patients at the human," suggesting thatthose pushing the experiments might want same time. Cameron had the speakers installed literally under the to "volunteer their heads for use in Dr. Baldwin's 'noble' pillows in the "sleep rooms." We made sure they heard it," says a project. " doctor who worked with Cameron. With some patients, Cameron With Cameron, Agency officials not only had a doctor willing to perform terminal experiments in sensory deprivation, but one with lCameron wrote that when a patient remembered his schizo• :lis own source of subjects. As part of his CIA-funded research, he phrenic symptoms, the schizophrenic behavior usually returned. If the amnesia held for these symptoms, as Cameron claimed it often did, the subject usually did not have a relapse. Even in his "cured" 21n his proposal to the Human Ecology Group, Cameron wrote patients, Cameron found that Rorschach tests continued to show that his subjects would be spending only 16 hours a day in sensory schizophrenic thinking despite the improvement in overt behavior. deprivation, while they listened to psychic driving tapes (thus pro• To a layman, this would seem to indicate that Cameron's approach viding some outside stimuli). Nevertheless, one of Cameron's got only atthe symptoms, not the causes of mental problems. Not colleagues states that some patients, including Mary C. were in deterred, however, Cameron dismissed this inconsistency as a continuously. Always looking for a better way, Cameron almost "persistent enigma." certainly tried both variations. Phoenix Rising 25 had a "box" built in the converted stables behind the hospital that ory malfunction. For him, the end justified the means, and housed Leonard Rubenstein and his behavioral laboratory. Un• when one is dealing with the waste of human potential, it daunted by the limits set in Hebb's work, Cameron left one is easy to adopt this stance. woman in for 35 days, although he had so scrambled her mind Cameron retired abruptly in 1964, for unexplained reasons. His with his other techniques that one cannot say, as Baldwin pre• successor, Dr. Robert Cleghorn, made a virtually unprecedented dicted to the Agency, if the prolonged deprivation did specific move in the academic world of mutual back-scratching and praise. damage. This subject's name was Mary c., and, try as he might, He commissioned a psychiatrist and a psychologist, unconnected to Cameron could not get through to her. As the aloof psychiatrist Cameron, to study his electroshock work. They found that 60 wrote in his notes: "Although the patient was prepared by both percent of Cameron's depatterned patients complained they still prolonged sensory isolation (35 days) and by repeated depattern• had amnesia for the period of 6 months to 10 years before the ing, and although she received 101 days of positive driving, no therapy.3 They could find no clinical proof that showed the favorable results were obtained. "2 Before prescribing this treatment to be any more or less effective than other approaches. treatment, Cameron had diagnosed the 52-year-old Mary c.: They concluded that "the incidence of physical complications and "Conversion reaction in a woman of the involutional age with the anxiety generated in the patient because of real or imagined mental anxiety; hypochondriatic." In other words, Mary C. was memory difficulty argue against" future use of the technique. going through menopause. The study-team members couched their report in densely aca• In his proposal to the CIA front, Cameron also said he would demic jargon, but one of them speaks more clearly now. He talks test curare, the South American arrow poison which, when bitterly of one of Cameron's former patients who needs to keep a liberally applied, kills by paralyzing internal body functions. In list of her simplest household chores to remember how to do them. nonlethal doses, curare causes a limited paralysis which blocks but Then he repeats several times how powerful a man Cameron was, does not stop these functions. According to his papers, some of how he was "the godfather of Canadian psychiatry." He which wound up in the archives of the American Psychiatric continues, "I probably shouldn't talk about this, but Cameron • Association, Cameron injected subjects with curare in conjunction for him to do what he did - he was a very schizophrenic guy, who with sensory deprivation, presumably to immobilize them further. totally detached himself from the human implications of his Cameron also tested LSD in combination with psychic driving work ... God, we talk about concentration camps. I don't want to and other techniques. In late 1956 and early 1957, one of his make this comparison, but God, you talk about 'we didn't know it subjects was Val Orlikow, whose husband David has become a was happening,' and it was - right in our back yard." member of the Canadian parliament. Suffering from what she calls Cameron died in 1967, at age 66, while climbing a mountain. a "character neurosis that started with postpartum depression," The American Journal of Psychiatry published a long and glowing she entered Allan Memorial as one of Cameron's personal obituary with a full-page picture of his not-unpleasant face. patients. He soon put her under his version of LSD therapy. One D. Ewen Cameron did not need the CIA to corrupt him. He to four times a week, he or another doctor would come into her clearly had his mind set on doing unorthodox research long before room and give her a shot of LSD, mixed with either a stimulant or the Agency front started to fund him. With his own hospital and a depressant and then leave her alone with a tape recorder that source of subjects, he could have found elsewhere encourage• played excerpts from her last session with him. As far as is ment and money to replace the CIA's contribution, which never known, no other LSD researcher ever subjected his patients to exceeded $20,000 a year. However, Agency officials knew exactly unsupervised trips - certainly not over the course of two months what they were paying for. They travelled periodically to Montreal when her hospital records show she was given LSD 14 times. "It to observe his work, and his proposal was chillingly explicit. In was terrifying," Mrs. Orlikow recalls. "You're afraid you've gone Cameron, they had a doctor, conveniently outside the United off somewhere and can't come back." She was supposed to write States, willing to do terminal experiments in electroshock, sensory down on a pad whatever came into her head while listening to the deprivation, drug testing, and all of the above combined. By tapes, but often she became so frightened that she could not write literally wiping the minds of his subjects clean by depatterning and at all. "You become very small," she says, as her voice quickens then trying to program in new behavior, Cameron carried the and starts to reflect some of her horror. "You're going to fall off process known as "brainwashing" to its logical extreme. the step, and God, you're going down into hell because it's so far, and you are so little. Like Alice, where is the pill that makes you big, and you're a squirrel, and you can't get out of the cage, and somebody's going to kill you." Then, suddenly, Mrs. Orlikow From THE SEARCH FOR THE "MANCHURIAN CAN• pulls out of it and lucidly states, "Some very weird things happened." DIDATE": Mrs. Orlikow hated the LSD treatment. Several times she told The CIA and Mind Control by John Marks Cameron she would take no more, and the psychiatrist would put Copyright (c) 1979 by John Marks his arm around her and ask, "Lassie," which he called all his Reprinted by permission of Times Books, a division of women patients, "don't you want to get well, so you can go home and see her husband?" She remembers feeling guilty about not Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Company, Inc. following the doctor's orders, and the thought of disappointing Cameron, whom she idolized, crushed her. Finally, after Cameron talked her out of quitting the treatment several times, she had to end it. She left the hospital but stayed under his private care. In 1963 he put her back in the hospital for more intense psychic driving. "I thought he was God," she states. "I don't know how I could have been so stupid ... A lot of us were naive. We thought psychiatrists had the answers. Here was the greatest in the world, with all these titles." In defense of Cameron, a former associate says the man truly cared about the welfare of his patients. He wanted to make them well. As his former staff psychologist wrote: He abhorred the waste of human potential, seen most dras• • tically in the young people whose minds were distorted by the •• alto"awo.ea. aews.a •••. what was then considered to be schizophrenia. He felt equally strongly about the loss of wisdom in the aged through mem- 125 OSBORNES'.5., WNlFEG,MAN.,CANADA,R3L 1Y4 one year subscription _ $5.00 3Cleghorn's team found little loss of memory on objective tests, business/ institution _ $12.00 like the Wechsler Memory Scale but speculated that these tests measured a different memory function - short-term recall - than that the subjects claimed to be missing. 26 Phoenix Rising pRoFILes

David Oaks, at 26, has impressive credentials. He graduated in 1977 from Harvard, where he studied government and eco• David Oaks: nomics, but "feels a little weird about having been at Harvard. " He earns what money he needs doing temporary typing work ... at 100 words a minute. "They even gave me Anti-psychiatry activist flowers during National Secretary Week, " he added. Aside from these accomplishments, BY CONNIE NEIL two things motivate David Oaks • personal growth and anti-psychiatry beliefs, ideas about religion, techno• were giving it to me. While you're on movement work. Combined, these have logy, love. These are things everyone that drug, you're unable to think, can't led to his support of larger issues, like thinks about, but I tended to act them concentrate or make your thoughts the recent peace march on the United Nations. out, and so I got locked up. articulate. I have a feeling that still "Usually the Harvard school auth• follows me through the years, not as orities pressured me into going to the intensive as with EeT people, but I "When you get locked up, you institution, so although technically I think it affects me still," said Oaks. realize that a lot of other people who went voluntarily, there was a lot of While Oaks completed his Harvard say they were wrongfully locked up or heavy coercion. During my time at education, he was only permitted to drugged or oppressed may be right. So Harvard I was inside about five times stay on there provided he received you're willing to think and act differ• for periods from a few days to five injections. ently about these things as long as you weeks. "Basically what happened was I know how to do it carefully. "In the institution they would give totally fell in love with this woman at "Seven years ago I ran into a pro• me drugs, sometimes forcibly injecting Harvard, absolutely, ridiculously. I blem. I'm manic depressive. What Thorazine, and put me'in seclusion really made an idiot of myself. I was happens is I suddenly start going which made me really angry. Thorazine totally fixated on her, couldn't get her without sleep, thinking a mile a minute, totally wiped out my thoughts and out of my mind, wandering the streets, and having ideas, weird philosophical feelings for the period of time they walking by the river, her face always in my memory, always in my mind. I just suddenly realized that this was it. " Anyway, every time I went crazy I would call her up. At the time I think she just tolerated me and it wasn't really a problem for her. Although in a way I guess she was frightened or in• timidated by me, I don't think it was a really heavy thing. "I was cooped up in a small dormi• tory room, listening to the stereo and coming out of the closet in terms of being alive. I burst out of there at a million miles an hour. And you're not supposed to do that. "Another time I went crazy pub• lishing a poetry magazine called 'padan aram' whose motto was 'all experi• mental art is to some degree reckless' - and these poets had me locked up," said Oaks. His last day at Harvard was the last time he took an injection. Oaks has not been hospitalized or drugged since then. then. Phoenix Rising 27

"After graduation I did about four "The reason I left was because I'd "I also helped out a little with years work with the Boston group been thinking a lot about ways people Madness Network News and the Mental Patients Liberation Front (P.O. are controlled. I drew up at my office Network Against Psychiatric Assault, Box 514, Cambridge, Mass. USA job, (where I didn't have to do any who share an office in Berkeley, Cali• 02238). They taught me many things. I thinking work) a list of goals in order fornia," said Oaks. wrote my senior paper on the organi• to get me past the controlling influences For the May '82 Conference in zational structure of MPLF to analyze of society. Toronto, Oaks arrived early to help how it was organized. Looking at how "I decided that society, my past, with last-minute details and planning. things are organized has helped ever having to earn money to get by, He wrote some press releases, facili• since in my work for the movement. problems, oppression, media - all tated some Conference meetings and "Harvard didn't teach me a thing these different influences control our actively supported the Sheraton Sit-In. compared to MPLF who taught me minds and the way we think. After the Conference he stayed on to backpacking, friendship, anti-sexism, "I sort of built a 'space suit', set my write his impressions for the Phoenix radical politics, community organizing, goals for everyday life and now I check Rising Conference issue. grant writing, press releases, dealing how they're doing from time to time. Oaks uses his skills in other political with the press, handling meetings, The suit makes it possible to walk groups - anti-nuclear power, anti• finding that trusted people can filch freely from the mind control. nuclear war, feminist issues, progres• from the treasury, that your office can "My goals are seven: spirituality, ex• sive leftist politics - to name his be ripped apart - that these things can pression, thought, health, friends, anti• favourites. "I've helped organize a lot happen and that you have to go on, facism, and nature's beauty. of demonstrations," he added. that it's all human. "I never let money influence me "For my improved health it is very "I gained a lot from all the won• unless it's necessary for a particular important to get enough sleep, eat the derful people there. I think ex-mental goal. If your goal is to be happier right food, not take any harmful drugs, patients are fascinating, a great about yourself and you need a car to have a network of supportive friends, minority with their own culture, all do that, then you need a job. But and do political work so you can unusual people. For me, different kinds perhaps you can bypass the job and car change a bad system and turn your ex• of people is where it's at. A novelist and still feel happier about yourself. I perience into a positive thing so it today could not write about the cor• support myself, but money is a problem won't happen to you again or to other porate world because they're all the if I'm going to do it on my own people," said Oaks. same. He'd have to write about ex• terms," said Oaks. mental patients because they're willing During this last year on the road After the peace march, David Oaks to be different," explained Oaks. David Oaks has contributed his work to returned to his parents' home in After eight years in Boston, Oaks left other anti-psychiatry groups like the Chicago where he is currently working a year ago. Alliance for the Liberation of Mental on freelance anti-psychiatry articles for Patients in Philadelphia. publication. ?? Friends of Schizophrenics ?? BY CONNIE NEIL Tuesday. They have an office at Queen 'no,' well he doesn't get an injection. A Street Mental Health Centre. patient who is simply extremely difficult Ontario Friends of Schizophrenics has OFS is a relatives group. Several ex• to get along with, who is hallucinating a mighty fat stick to shake at the powers inmates were at the October and Nov• at home, who may be causing a lot of that decide how things will go for the ember meetings, although none property damage, we find generally psychiatrized. Fifteen hundred families participated in any way. Mostly they does not get admitted to hospital. And in Toronto alone can't be ignored. were discussed in the possessive tense• this is one of the reasons I think our When you consider that their first meet• "My son is sicker than yours"• group is important, because we're try• ing in June 1978 drew fifteen families although one woman related what ing to help families cope with patients which have grown to fifteen hundred in worked in her family was equal part• hallucinating, not taking medication, four years, and that the Toronto nership, fair distribution of chores and acting out, which is very distressing to branch president Claire McLaughlin individuality acceptance. families and they need help coping with feels that "We are moving slowly. OFS has a small pilot out-reach that situation." We're a very young'group," you have program to help those with no family. Another service of OFS is their home some idea that this growth figure has It consists of finding and renting apart• visits, sometimes to families when one just begun to climb. ments, providing furnishings, clothing member, often the father, is rejecting All funding comes from donations. and a $150 monthly supplement to the schizophrenic diagnosis; sometimes Family membership is $5 yearly, $2.50 Family Benefits. A member family will to a pregnant "schizophrenic" who is of which goes to the provincial body. invite them for dinner and be on 24• unaware of her condition and needs This does not evm cover the postage to hour emergency call. All in the out• pre-natal care. send newsletters containing summaries reach program take their medication. Experts in related fields regularly of the informational monthly public McLaughlin uses terms like compliance speak to the group. The October meetings in Timothy Eaton Memorial or non-compliance in referring to medi• speakers dealt with the alternative hous• Church on St. Clair Avenue West the cation. ing programs of Dufferin Residence run last Wednesday of each month, except• When told that the issue was not by the Salvation Army, Dorset House ing December, at 8:00 p.m. Addition• medication but forced treatment and for women over thirty, and Houselink, ally, family support groups meet at 7:30 informed consent, she said, "I don't a cooperative program. "In terms of p.m. in Etobicoke General Hospital on know any hospital that can force medi• housing we're looking at a large facility, the second Tuesday, and at cation on a patient. If a patient is asked I suppose like an institution, where Sunnybrook Hospital on the third if he will take an injection and he says patients would volunteer to come in, ------_.------28 Phoenix Rising

and linked to a hospital, with both "There's no question that the use of active and passive programs," said neuroleptics could conceivably cause McLaughlin. "Our patients will more problems with dopamine recep• need permanent housing in cases of tors," said McLaughlin. "More doctors parents' death. Some would leave and today are giving patients drug holidays find apartments, but could come back. for just that reason. Our people are Temporary housing is needed to give very nervous about long-term medica• families relief, We are seeing family tion. We see patients who go off medi• medical problems brought on by stress." cation and suddenly have tremendous Other speakers have included Dr. symptoms never seen before, but in Stokes of Penetang to clear up its mys• time they go. Neuroleptics wash out of tique, a lawyer on wills and trust funds, the system in six weeks. Certainly the and a judge on insanity definition and patients in our out-reach program who preparation of related criminal defense. are consistently on medication are really "We are seeing patients leave doing very well. Those not complying hospital," said McLaughlin, "and are in much worse shape." immediately go off medication, take out the family car while hallucinating And it is attitudes such as this that - .. make Ontario Friends of and have tragic driving accidents. Insur• .and; ResoUrce 'Guide ance companies do not respond to Schizophrenics such a potentially dan• -- ecI~illn.revilleCl & expanded" claims if the patient intended suicide. gerous organization. For in the final "-- j And if he kills tlie pepple in the other analysis, the terms they employ are ~ -=-- K. rortlaM Frank -=- car, not only is he incarcerated, but the indicative of their condescending, families are facing tremendous civil control-oriented attitudes towards A definitive resource including over 1,000 an• suits. We have a lawyer who volunteers "schizophrenics." They use terms like notations of journals, books, articles, and non• print media, as well as essays on major trends advice or defense of this and petty patient, compliance or non-compliance, in the anti-psychiatry movemenL An in• crimes by juveniles." and mentally ill to describe their mem• valuable handbook for anyone investigating • By far the most popular meetings bers in the community. But when do or confronting - the present mental health feature speakers on research. "We have these patients get to be people? Or be system _ Original woodcuts_ a strong, large medical advisory board," well? The fact that OFS has completely Available at bookstores, or pre-paid said McLaughlin. "We are interested in bought the medical model puts it orders from PRESS GANG research. Dr. Philip Seaman dissects the squarely on the side of psychiatry, and PUBLISHERS, 603 Powell St., brains of schizophrenics. He dissects I question how much "consumer" criti• Vancouver B.C. V6A IH2. cism can be done from such a hand-in• the brains of normal people. They are $4_50 paper or $12_50 cloth_ different under analysis. hand position. Add 60' for shipping. CONSUMER HEALTH ORGANIZATION OF CANADA presents TOTAL HEALTH '83 Royal York Hotel Saturday, March 12th, 9 a.m. -10 p.m. VITAL INFORMATION AND WORDS OF WISDOM FROM INTERNATIONALLY -KNOWN AUTHORITIES TO HELP PREVENT OR OVERCOME ILLNESS Advance Tickets are $13.00 at CHOC Office or through BASS Agency. $15.00 at the Door 108 Willowdale Ave., P.O. Box 248 Willowdale, Onto M2N 559 222-6517 Phoenix Rising 29 LbeBOo~ aJDRrD LORDS

Is There No Place on Earth for Me? forces the medical model of "mental Altogether, this book holds some by Susan Sheehan illness" with a vengeance: " ... the limited interest for the prejudices ex• Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, most enlightened current thinking is hibited and as an indication of the lines Mass., 1982, 333 pages. that schizophrenia is a variety of ill• of recourse that the mental health nesses, many of which clearly have a establishment is likely to take under genetic factor that has not yet been attack. The half-truths of which it is REVIEWED BY documented." From there, Sheehan full are precisely those most deep• PATRICIA URQUHART goes on to talk of "genes of schizo• rooted and insidious, those most in the phrenia". For the author and her path of clear, truly liberal thinking just Written by a journalist and staff psycho-pharmacological collaborator, now. But it makes still more painful writer for The New Yorker, Is There schizophrenia exists and is incurable reading when one turns from its pers• No Place on Earth for Me? purports to (one is "taught in medical school that pectives to the subject herself. be a well-researched and liberal-minded schizophrenia is incurable"). Given this Sylvia Frumkin (the ridiculous• account of the personal and medical point of view, all the issues in approach sounding pseudonym is due to the history of a woman now in her mid• and "treatment" indeed seem to be re• author) is the second daughter of a first thirties and commonly diagnosed duced to questions of The Right Drug generation immigrant father and second during the last half of her life as: in The Right Dose at The Right Time. generation mother, born in East New schizophrenic, chronic, undifferentiated. Finally, to this agenda, Sheehan adds York. Both her parents were fearful The coverage and sympathetic press the the apparently progressive suggestion and materially obsessed people who book has received both in the US and that every psychiatrist with a private • placed high expectations on their Canada (Maclean's, Sept. 20, 1982) hence lucrative - practice should do daughters' academic success. Sylvia's confirm the expectation that the the service of taking one back ward older sister Joyce more than met these author's attitude and handling of the inmate into his care or of giving an expectations, high-achieving through story reflect the latest, most enlight• hour or two a week to working in high school and college and eventually ened and morally sensitive thinking on public hospitals. becoming an executive in the fashion the subjects of "mental illness" and its "treatment" . But actually I cannot imagine a stronger (on the personal level) apologia for the status quo in theory and the medical model in prac• tice. The criticism that appears in the account, though often revealing, is always either of individuals - private or professional - or of therapies or the untherapeutic-to-abominable conditions in both home and institutions. Never is there criticism of the fabric of the mental health establishment itself. Rather, both professional intervention and "treatment" are upheld by what is called the "modern" and "scientific" attitude of "biologically oriented psy• chiatrists", who believe that "mental illness is a physiological or chemical im• balance in the body that is affecting the brain, and should be treated with physical remedies". Not surprisingly, then, Sheehan's ultimate authority, whom she evokes time and time again to comment like a one-man chorus on all the misdiagnoses and controversial therapies, turns out to be a specialist in psycho-pharmacology, acknowledged as Dr. Gideon Seaman. The existence and diagnosis of schizophrenia, too, are unquestioned here. The author's position on this rein- 30 Phoenix Rising

industry, although as an adult she was Sylvia's high intelligence, imaginative• pect for the person's own perceptions, sufficiently dissatisfied with her ness and verbal inventiveness resulted in judgments and estimations of their personal life to seek counsel. For Sylvia what are seen as brilliant performances needs. The evidence in this book is that the going was always rougher: she whenever she was desperate and manic. Sylvia - when not desperate - had re• became physically clumsy and careless Yet one monologue, recorded while she markable insight into her own circum• in appearance and was given to over• was reading a hospital folder during an stances, into which people and places eating even as a child; her entire school admittance and commenting on it to were good for her, and which were not. career was one desperate struggle to herself, shows the acuteness with which But these perceptions were almost approach, on rare occasions, her she illuminated even the highest stressed invariably ignored, by-passed or sister's idolized achievements. By her situations: frustrated. adolescence, Sylvia's father had with• "Philosophy of Treatment," she drawn emotionally altogether (only read. "'The individual with a pro• Sylvia Frumkin had, and has, low showing much guilt later by his fre• blem is best served in his own en• credibility. More accurately, with rare quent visits when she was hospital• vironment.' I'm against polluting the exceptions, that is all she was ever ized). Her mother's attitude by adoles• environment, always have been. 'This granted. It is an attitude that shows up cence had hardened into petty nagging is the basic philosophy of the New with appalling consistency in such and continual denigration. She would York State Department of Mental "cases", but what I question now is later comment, for example, after Hygiene and of Creedmore Psy. whether this book, with its seemingly Sylvia's clothes were lost during one Center.' They shouldn't use abbre• sympathetic perspective, does not itself admittance into hospital: "It isn't viations. Abbreviations can drive add to the low credibility and lack of enough that Sylvia has lost her mind. mental patients nuts because they respect given Sylvia. Sheehan has been She has to lose all her clothes too." don't know what they mean. 'If he lauded in the press for her heroic leaves his home to be hospitalized, it actions in "immersing herself in the is harder for him to return to his for• nether world of mental illness"; indeed, By high school Sylvia had sought she did undoubtedly spend many hours help from a psychiatric social worker mer life.' Amen. 'However, for the gathering information firsthand from who "confirmed Sylvia's fears that few who need hospitalization, these Sylvia. And, although she claims Sylvia something was wrong with her" - a facilities are available and every attempt will be made to allow the was both "thrilled" with the project leaden, self-fulfilling prophecy. Soon and that she "really likes the book" after the shock of being hit by a car client privacy, dignity, and com• (Maclean's interview), I wonder if while crossing a street, Sylvia's fort.' Privacy? Dignity? Comfort? behaviour became increasingly erratic Bull. All untrue. They're killing Sylvia fully trusted her, personally, as a people here." (p. 26) friend rather than as a promoter. and she was put on medication; sub• Which is not at all the same thing as sequently, she was hospitalized for the One psychiatrist remarked that appreciating, as Sylvia certainly would first time: diagnosis, "acute, undif• "she's a genius at being insane." But have, the attention, the limelight. As ferentiated schizophrenia". She was not Sylvia's is a story of drastically dimin• ishing possibilities. In spite of the the author says, "she had always quite sixteen. Her history henceforth wanted to star." shows the all-too-familiar cyclical intelligence and self-awareness shown by her comments here, the emotional pattern (" transinstitutionalization" So I question by what right, if Susan Sheehan calls it) of institutionalization confusion and narrowness of her family life meant that her horizons were not Sheehan had not won Sylvia's real with some round of "therapy" (one broad - ever. respect and not just her susceptible drug or many, mounting in dosage over "When I was at Music and Art, I attention, she could continue to intrude the years - 15,000 mg. of Thorazine at herself into the life of such a defence• one point - or electroshock or insulin once had a best friend, Camilla Cos• tello. She was Abbot and Costello's less human being. By what personal coma therapy); a gradual .lessening of niece. She told me, "Sylvia, I have and morally responsible right, that is, dosages (and discontinuation of ECT for the "total cooperation" which was or ICT) as "symptoms" abate; the many friends, but you're my best friend." At the same time, I had a given "by the bureaucrats running New reward of grounds privileges or York mental illness facilities" is not in workshops; and later, the right to move therapist named Francine Baden. Francine was my fairy godmother. doubt. Sylvia Frumkin's story is an un• to a transitional centre or halfway relenting sequence of one kind of house, or back into the hotbed Those were the best six months of my life, the only normal six months of professional intervention and "service" atmosphere of home. Finally, under after another, everyone with the stress 'and without stability, she would my life, those six months with Cam• illa and Francine. I once told Fran• intention of doing good for her rather "decompensate"; that is, her behavior than sharing with her whatever help, would become more and more extreme cine Baden, 'Getting well is growing up.' I'm not sure I want to grow up. private or professional, would follow and unacceptable and she would be from simple recognition and respect. I rehospitalized and a new cycle would I'm going to stay Wonder Woman forever." question whether at the same time that begin. So even if we agree to speak of Sylvia Sylvia's dream of starring has been fed, having "chosen" a "career" at which her credibility and self-esteem, as one The psycho-pharmacological auth• she was a genius, we shouldn't be mis• private and unique and often dis• ority comments that "no treatment led into overlooking that it was a choice tressed human being, have not been that she received for 13 years bore any by default - only nominally a choice. lowered yet one more time. logical relationship to a previous treat• ment." Indeed the illogicalities are Finally, there is a recurrent, in fact, For I suspect that, through her pat• gross, but then, "many psychiatrists almost invariable attitude in Sylvia's ex• ronage and opportune appearance of ... don't think her case is uncommon perience that occurs as regularly in private crusading, the author has in this respect ... don't take the time nearly all such histories of those judged indeed confirmed Sylvia's stardom • and trouble to study case histories." mentally ill: the extreme lack of res- and denied her. Phoenix Rising 31

A Mad People's History of Madness, by Dale Peterson, Editor. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982, 368 pp.

REVIEWED BY DON WEITZ Thank fully, Dale Peterson is not another mental health professional pre• suming to speak or write for "mental patients." Instead, he's a professor of literature at California's Stanford Uni• versity and he's compiled some gripping personal accounts of madness and in• carceration written by twenty-six "men• tally ill" people over the past five hun• dred years. Although Peterson was never incarcerated or psychiatrized, he worked as a nurse's aide in a Cali• fornia psychiatric institution. (Ken Kesey also worked a few months as a psychiatric aide before he wrote One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest). It was that experience which stimulated Peter• son to produce this book. A Mad People's History of Madness is not the first or best collection of autobiographical accounts of people's experiences with psychiatry, particular• ly institutional psychiatry, and madness. Other modern anthologies such as Michael Glenn's Voices From The Asylum (Harper, 1974), Part I of Madness Network News Reader (Glide, 1974) and Charles Steir's True Stories From The Cuckoo's Nest (New Repub• lic Books, 1978) are most outstanding for their emotional power and radical perspective. Although Peterson's purpose is to let the mad speak for themselves about their own madness, his excessively long introductory remarks, commentaries and annoying and irrelevant psychiatric theorizing interfere with the book's purpose and thrust. In the introduc• atmosphere of institutional life, the (labeled "schiozophrenia"), partly due tion, Peterson sets himself and the reader can easily conclude that the ans• to the support of a Laingian psy• reader an almost impossible task by wer to "institution or no institution" is chiatrist. However, when madness is raising too many questions (somewhat definitely no institution, as well as no believed to be the work of the devil rhetorically) which he hopes the book psychiatry. And madness is not ex• ("daemonic possession") or an illness will answer. For example, he asks: perienced as a disease; the vast majority and is "treated" in a madhouse or "Is there meaning in madness? Can of writers (except for Mark Vonnegut, modern psychiatric institution, it is we know it? What is madness? What who believes he had "schizophrenia") usually torture or hell. was madness? What is the history of did not feel they were sick or "men• The twenty-six personal accounts in madness? Is it a disease, or is it tally ill." Most experienced and ex• the book span a period of 540 years • simply a private religion, a little pressed their madness as agonizing per• 1436 to 1976. This historical approach harmless deviance of thought and ac• sonal, mystical or spiritual experiences, provides the reader with a very disturb• tion? Which is better, institution or which directly challenge psychiatry's ing overview of personal pain and suf• no institution? Which is better, psy• medical model of "mental illness." fering, abuse-humiliation-torture by in• chiatry or no psychiatry? Are we If understood and supported by stitutional staff, as well as notable all ... mad, and is madness really family or friends, especially self-help instances of courage and protest by so close to sanity?" support groups, madness or craziness some inmates. For students, researchers While Peterson doesn't give us any can be a period of intense emotional, and Movement activists, Peterson in• direct answers to these important ques• spiritual or creative growth. In an cludes a comprehensive bibliography tions, a careful reading of the book excerpt from Beyond All Reason (over 300 references) of "Writings by allows us to discover most of them. (1965), Morag Coate gives a sensitive, Mad People and Mental Patients." After reading the numerous chilling ac• beautifully written account of how she One of the earliest recorded accounts counts of staff I guard abuses of psy• finally accepted and understood her of madness dates back to the Medieval chiatric inmates and the dehumanizing tortured thoughts and confusion Ages. In her account in 1436, Margery 32 Phoenix Rising

mentioned these abuses: "put to bed protest writings by some of the most Kempe writes about being tortured by with my arms fastened medicine outspoken anti~psychiatry activists religious visions and voices of the forced down my throat " Neverthe- "devil" or "evil spirits." To many (except for Donaldson) in the Psychia• less, Perceval protested by generally re• tric Inmates Liberation Movement. citizens, Kempe usually appeared in a fusing. to admit that he was "insane" Peterson is either unaware of or state of frenzy. Peterson comments that and sometimes fighting with staff. He chooses to ignore the Movement. Had she was often "bound hand and foot, was also sane enough to realize that with chains of iron" for her "persis• he included writings by ex-inmate acti• such "treatment" was in fact punish• tent erratic behavior." Kempe barely vists, the book would have had some ment, its purpose social control - "to political clout and a greater credibility. escaped "death by fire" after being the end of my confinement, men acted tried and acquitted as a heretic in 1417. as though my body, soul and spirit A similar religious or spiritual strug• were fairly given up to their control, to gle is described by Judge Daniel Schre• work their mischief and folly upon ... ber in his Memoirs of My Nervous I did not find the respect paid usually Living and Working with Schizophrenia, Illness (1903). Schreber was incarcera• even to a child." ted for roughly ten years in Germany. by M.V. Seeman, S.K. Littmann, E. Peterson also includes a brief ex• Plummer, J.F. Thonton, and J.J. Jef• For many years, he was obsessed with cerpt by of her ac• the idea of "soul murder," suffered fries. Toronto: University of Toronto count of institutional abuses, which she Press, 1982, 146 pp. "compulsive thinking" and believed he and many other inmates suffered while was turning into a woman. (Freud's incarcerated in an Illinois state mental theory that paranoia is caused by re• hospital in the mid 1800s. Packard's pressed homosexual impulses- since minister-husband committed her simply REVIEWED BY CONNIE NEIL discredited - was largely based on because she refused to accept or Schreber's case). Judge Schreber finally espouse his religious beliefs; at the won his freedom "after two appeals, time, a sexist Illinois law permitted hus• Living and Working with Schizo• and an excellent self-defense in court of bands to involuntarily commit their'! phrenia is the collective work of five his right to freedom under the law." wives for trivial reasons. Packard psychiatrists. In addition there is a fore• We are also treated to a brief, finally succeeded in getting the first word by writer Margaret Gibson (the moving account of deep religious civil rights bill for psychiatric inmates only signed piece; other sections are feeling for the world written by Vaslav passed in Illinois. However, the bill was handled anonymously) and personal Nijinsky in his diary (1918-1919). Ni- repealed a few years later. accounts by two mothers, a father, two jinsky is generally regarded as the great• A more recent account of inmate "schizophrenics" and a doctor. So it est dancer that ever lived and a genius. protest appears in Kenneth Donaldson's would seem there might be various His wife's parents committed him for Insanity Inside Out (Crown, 1976). points of view expressed in the work. his unusual or non-conformist behavior Donaldson was unjustly incarcerated On the contrary, all speak with a single and Nijinsky languished in a psychiatric for roughly fifteen years in a Florida voice: the established view of psychiatry institution in Switzerland for many state mental hospital. He became a that those once labelled as "schizo• years until his death. According to "jailhouse lawyer" and with the help phrenic" must forever take neuroleptic Peterson, psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler of a civil rights lawyer finally won his medication which, although it cannot (inventor of the term "schizophrenia") freedom and a landmark decision in the cure them, should probably make their once "interviewed Nijinsky for ten United States Supreme Court by symptoms less bothersome to those minutes and then told Romola (his proving that he was illegally committed around them. wife) that he was "incurably insane." (he was never dangerous) and not This represents a fairly new tack for The book is also notable for some "treated" for his alleged "paranoid the psychiatric profession, in that pre• accounts of protest by a number of schizophrenia." Only two or three viously the cloak of mystery and secrecy courageous inmates. For example, in years ago, Donaldson was awarded a included not just the" patient" -the 1818 Urbane Metcalf tried to inform a little over $30,000 for his many years one most concerned with "treatment"• British House of Commons investigat• of suffering and wrongful imprison• but also the parents, siblings, spouse or ing committee of numerous abuses ment. children of the affected person, and committed by staff which occurred Although this book is often gripping, usually the group s/ he lives with and while he was locked up for two years in Peterson has the annoying habit of will return to after "treatment". Now England's notorious Bedlam asylum. lapsing into medical/psychiatric jargon, psychiatry recognizes the benefits of Metcalf personally experienced and e.g., "psychosis," "hallucination," wooing the relatives of the "schizo• witnessed routine beatings and com• "delusions," "schizophrenia," which phrenic" to help with the management plained about them - often quite betray his uncritical acceptance of the of their prescribed program. openly to staff. He also knew that some medical model. And I was particularly Under "Basic Information" (about guards murdered one inmate (the annoyed by reading almost a whole two-thirds of the book) they cover what murder was covered up) by drowning page in which Peterson summarizes the schizophrenia is, inpatient and out• him in a bathtub and he witnessed staff bogus "biochemical theory of schizo• patient treatment, medication, how manipulating inmates to bully other in• phrenia" as propounded by Larry relatives can help, support for relatives, mates. For his efforts to expose these Stein, a researcher with Wyeth Labora• work and school, and the future. The abuses, Metcalf was put into solitary tories in Philadelphia. Peterson also latter third consists of the personal ac• confinement for one and a half repeats the common myth that the counts mentioned above and appendices months. "effective anti-psychotic medications" of agencies, services, self-help relatives John Perceval, another Englishman, were largely responsible for reducing groups and suggested readings. was incarcerated for one and a half the large inmate population in U.S. According to the authors, schizo• years (1831-32) simply because of his mental hospitals in the 1950s and 196Os. phrenia is a "variety of illnesses in each "erratic" behavior which included ex• Finally, the book is not as powerful of which there may be somewhat differ• periencing "visions and voices." In an and up-to-date as it should be. This is ent symptoms and for which the cause excerpt from his Narrative, Perceval because Peterson did not include recent may also be different." Well, I'm glad Phoenix Rising 33 they cleared that up. It has long been reason for the secrecy of the diagnosis not seem aware of them and often feel suspected that "schizophrenia" is a -from family and affected person they are a small price to pay for the Catch-22 label in which all questionable alike. What other illness is kept secret security of staying free of psychosis." problems or people can conveniently be to this extent? Perhaps cancer, because What a pompous comment, indicative dumped. it can kill you. "Schizophrenia" is not of a consistently patronizing tone The cause is listed as a genetically fatal, but as there is no cure, once throughout the book. passed vulnerability which is triggered labelled the person is forever a "schizo• As the book is chiefly written with in a person's twenties or thirties. Stress ,phrenic." relatives of "schizophrenics" as the tar• contributes through faulty dopamine (a The book groups "schizophrenics" get readers, it is not surprising that natural chemical) transmission in the into those who: several chapters deal with their brain. These complex transmissions are 1. respond to medication and resume problems. They show how background the subject of the bulk of research. In their life, information can help with diagnosis. In post mortems, they discovered that 2. respond to medication, but need case of a relapse, there are a half-dozen "schizophrenics" have more dopamine family counselling, and ways to get the "patient" to receptors. But they state "it may be 3. do not respond to medication, and "hospital," or deal with violence, with• partly a result of neuroleptic treatment." are referred for thorough medical drawal or suicidal talk. Relatives This acknowledged paradox-the treat• evaluation and family counselling. groups are praised. And the personal ment listed as a possible cause-makes accounts make one realize s / he is not it difficult for informed consumers to Conveniently forgotten from this alone. wholeheartedly accept that prescribed grouping is the one-third of all labelled Approaching work or school, a neuroleptics, given their other distress• "schizophrenics" who recover without scholastic assessment builds self• ing "side effects", are good for you. medical intervention. Because psychiatry confidence. And although there may be They also discovered through new x-ray cannot discern which ones will recover problems-punctuality, initial passivity, techniques (CT scans) areas of shrink• without "treatment," all suspected extra time off, stress in crowds, age in the brains of some, but "it is not cases are prescribed neuroleptics and, if unexpected anger, slowness-those able known if these irregularities produce that does not work, ECT, an admit• to work make loyal, reliable, indispen• the symptoms of schizophrenia or if tedly controversial "treatment" for sable employees. they are a reaction to the illness." "schizophrenics. " Living and Working with Schizo• Questionable results further caution In the "Outpatient Treatment" chap• phrenia, aside from its patronizing consumer use in that "positive symp• ter, self-help groups are discussed as tone, represents a clear case of pro• toms (additions, like hearing voices) are presenting a consumer viewpoint to fessional/institutional bias in relation to more likely than negative (losses, like which psychiatry should pay careful "schizophrenia." The authors are all lessened drive or pleasure) to ease with attention. As examples of their problem psychiatrists who work out of the medical treatment." In other words, with consumer criticisms, they point to: Clarke Institute and they are dedicated psychiatry may have part of an answer, (1) Judi Chamberlin's On Our Own as ·to propounding the biological model of not THE answer. And yet they insist, having "important things to say about "mental illness." (forcibly injecting neuroleptics if nec• mental patients' associations but which essary) that consumers consider this categorically rejects medication;" (2) to THE answer, regardless of what perm• psychiatrist Thomas Szasz who found anent damage may be done to the her book "an honest and intelligent brain. assault on psychiatric atrocities" but Diagnosis, they tell us, is not easy who "rejects the commonly held view and "can be made with confidence only (of schizophrenia) as an illness of the when the patient is fully alert." Medi• brain;" and (3) to Theresa Spitzer's cated people, troubled, removed from Psychobattery which "attacks the use their environment to incarceration are of psychotherapy where medication is Two'irst-person ."_nts of not likely to be alert, and yet diagnosis indicated." They would like to see psy• wh.t it m•• nst." is often the reason given for institution• chiatry and consumers be willing to III•• '" 'Men•• 113' Retllnled' alization. listen and learn from one another and Symptoms include delusions (thought direct the reader to their list of self-help Robert Bogdan & Steven J. Taylor control, discrimination, body at dis• groups. However, only relatives' groups What does it mean to be tance), auditory hallucinations, dis• are listed. Not one of the many ex• 'mentally retarded'? This book turbances of feelings (inappropriate, inmate groups that have formed across North America and the world is gives some of the answers ... flat, personal relationships, ecstasy), answers that many people will slowness of movement, and / or a mentioned. not want to hear. The authors, distinct break in life (behaviour or per• The "Medications" chapter provides specialists in treating and sonality). Early warning signs are dim• excellent and complete information, teaching the handicapped, have inished ability to concentrate, increased covering twenty neuroleptics by their interviewed two former inmates self-consciousness and irritability, un• generic names plus several brand of institutions for the retarded. controllable moods, difficulties in names. (Fluphenazine (Moditen, They let them tell their stories in thinking, social withdrawal, increasing Prolixin) which is injected as fluphen• their own words; true and suspicion of other people's motives and zine decanoate (Modicate) is covered in painfully revealing they are an inability to sleep. this issue's Phoenix Pharmacy.) One powerful indictments of our When you read over all these symp• particularly patronizing comment re• knowledge of, our thinking toms and signs, they seem both general garding tardive dyskinesia, the irrever• about, and our ministrations and non-threatening. Yet sible brain damage resulting from long to the mentally handicapped. "schizophrenia" is probably the most term medication and seen in tics and $14.95 feared, most violent, shameful and facial spasms, cannot pass without mysterious label that can be given. note: "Families may find these tics a University of Toronto Press Likely these connotations are the nuisance, although most patients do 34 Phoenix Rising pboenfx pbaRrnaC~

MODITEN: Big Brother in BY DR. CALIGARI injectable form A new drug is being widely used in cubic centimeter of Prolixin the treatment of mental illness. It is In Canada, Prolixin is called Decanoate), a comparitively small dose long acting and used by injection - its either Moditen or Modicate. of orally taken pills, in this long acting name is fluphenazine (Prolixin-C). Is injectable form is capable of causing this the thalidomide of the 70s? I muscle rigidity and zombieism for 4-6 would like to have the opinion of other It is easy to 'mouth' pills, that is to weeks. Think of it, 4-6 weeks of mind doctors. Whilst it is still new, maybe we hide pills under the tongue, in the and muscle control with only one are lulled into a false sense of security, cheeks or back of throat, etc., and then injection lasting at most two minutes but are we justified in using a drug, spit them out later. As mentioned from beginning to end (longer if there which may take up to six weeks to before a large number of people 'given' is a struggle first, which there often is). eradicate from the tissues, without such psychiatric drugs do not like the Once the injection is given the person being sure of its safety? Its side effects drug's effect on body and mind and getting this mental! muscle glue has alone are legion. A study of 13 papers would never take such drugs volun• absolutely no way of doing anything gives the following: Common side tarily. Thus, numerous techniques of about this drug and its effects. There is effects reported are - lethargy, drowsi• avoiding such drugs have been invented no way of controlling the strength of ness, dizziness, muscular incoor• by psychiatric inmates. the drug once the shot is given. Thus, dination, parasthesia (skin numbness• With liquid, or concentrate form, after one shot of Prolixin, the next C), hypotension, blurring of vision, given as tasteless, colorless, odorless month of your life will, in effect, be confusion, nausea, vomiting and aches syrups in cups, or hidden in drinks or controlled by other people/the psychia• and pains. Parkinsonism is extremely foods, it is obviously harder to avoid tric system, i.e., psychiatrists, nurses, common. Incidence in reports varies the drugs. However, with two to four technicians, social workers, conserva• from 100 percent to 24 percent with psychiatric 'technicians' holding an tors, etc., by means of a drug, which many reports about 50 percent. unwilling psychiatric inmate and a has been deposited in your ass and Other reported side-effects include nurse, technician or doctor "armed" which slowly seeps into your blood psychotic relapse and glaucoma." with a syringe full of such drugs, stream day ... after day ... after "The simple fact that a number of avoiding forced drugging becomes day ... prisoners are walking the yard in this almost an impossibility. Far more No wonder to prison prisoners and institution like somnambulists, robots frequently than those on the 'outside' psychiatric prisoners, Prolixin is seen as and vegetables as a result of this drug would ever believe, psychiatric drugs psychiatry's most deadly and damaging (Prolixin), should be reason enough to are forcibly injected into people in the psychic poison, and both hated and make people apprehensive as to the name of 'treatment', "cure" and feared. Who gives the psychiatric effect it is having."2 (quote from a control. This is psychiatric RAPE, and system the right to force injections of petition addressed to the California any forced treatment equals such drugs into people? Drugs that can TORTURE! Senate Committee on penal institutions cause permanent brain damage, drugs by La Raza Unida, a Chicano organiza• It is one thing to get an injection of a that cause suicidal drug induced de• tion of prisoners at California Mens mind /muscle crusher drug like Haldol, pressions and despair, drugs that cause Colony). Thorazine, Stelazine, etc., with the mind and muscle misery, drugs that Prolixin (fluphenazine) is an 'anti• injections' effect lasting 8-12 hours and chemically violate both body and mind? psychotic' consciousness constrictor then slowly disappearing over a day or "After one month of this hell I was with enormous implications and two. It is quite another sitUlition when released to my sister. I immediately ramifications. When Prolixin was first the injection contains long acting threw all the pills they gave me down developed, it was merely one more versions of these drugs immersed in oils the toilet. Three days later (after a shot Thorazine-type drug marketed in with the drugs' effects lasting anywhere of Prolixin-C) my whole body went from 2-8 weeks. Prolixin Enanthate, tablet! pill form and as fluphenazine rigid. I kept drooling at the mouth and and now the newer Prolixin Decanoate, hydrochloride, a short acting injectable my legs would not support me. The form with effects lasting a few days. are long acting injectable forms of pain in my head was intense ... We Injectable forms of Thorazine type Thorazine whose effects last longer found out this poison they had given downers are the main form of coercive, than 4 weeks from one injection. me, Prolixin, had to be taken with the forced drugging. Thus, 25mg (one injection or one cc, antidote, Cogentin. The 8 weeks it took

36 Phoenix Rising

to completely eliminate this drug from Muscle rigidity and cramps is, "Case II - Man aged 41. Inpatient my system was the horror of my life. I however, not the only damaging effect in a mental hospital for six years ... had a continuous sickening feeling of Prolixin. Besides all the other, non• He was started on intramuscular flu• throughout my body. Each minute of muscular side-effects, i.e., dry mouth, phenazine enathate, 25 mg every this feeling was an hour. The headaches blurred vision, impotence, sedation, month, which was changed to were constant and I had no etc., Prolixin is also capable of causing fluphenazine decanoate three months concentration, only intense irritation at severe drug created 'depressions' or later. Six days after the first injection anyone. I had no resistance to sheer drug induced states of despair and of fluphenazine decanoate, he can• terror. When I was living through this, hopelessness. Again, it is often celled a promising interview for a job I thought how merciful death would between the 4th and 6th day after the and committed suicide by drowning on be.••3 injections that such suicidal the 13th day after the injection."5 E.R. Squibb, the drug company that hopelessness and drug despair start to Today Prolixin injections are being manufactured Prolixin, a big money reach their height; and it is impossible ever more widely used. This drug winner, is re!lping rich profits from a to determine how many such Prolixin 'solves' the problem of getting psychia• drug that is a horror in action for suicides there have now been. Disguised tric and prison inmates to take their many. Prolixin ads continually em• Drug Deaths! pills. Its easy to give, saves time and phasize how much money can be saved "A week after admission, he insures complete control. More and (cost-effectiveness, the 11th command• received his fortnightly injection (of more community mental health centers ment of the bureaucracy) with Prolixin Prolixin-C). Twenty-four hours later, - community control centers are injections as compared to pills taken he became withdrawn, refused food, starting Prolixin 'clinics'. Prolixin IS and took to his bed in mid-afternoon. every day, psychotherapy, or other the 1984 mind/muscle control tool, forms of 'helping' . He appeared sad and miserable, and here today! GONE TOMORROW!, I Now we live in the age of legal psy• was unwilling to discuss his state of hope. chiatric 'addiction', called 'mainten• mind. He remained in this depressed Dr. Caligari, ance therapy'. Prolixin clinics and state two days. When he returned to Madness Network News, Prolixin 'maintenance' is hailed by normal, he said that he felt the same October, 1976 shrinks as 'the answer' to all those way when he attempted suicide. A I. D. West, "Dangers of Fluphenazine", letter to similar depressive reaction recurred the Ed., Brit. J. Psych. 1970. problems of drug refusal, the answer to 2. La Raza Unida Statement. social control. Prolixin is 'the answer', when the injection was repeated a 3. NAPA statement. the simple chemical 'answer' to all the fortnight later. A check on the previous 4. R. deAlaraon et ai, "Severe Depressive Mood three months showed that he had had complexities of life that lead to 'freak Changes Following Slow-Release Intramuscular an injection of fluphenazine enanthate Fluphenazine Injection", Brit .. Med. J. Sept., outs' and 'freak ins'. Ultimately this 1969, p. 565. simplistic way of answering compli• four days before his suicidal attempt .••4 5. Ibid. 0.565. cated life situations reveals itself for what it is, drug controlled therapeutic tyranny, drug dictators in white coats and injectable forms, polypharmacy ... Hitler would have loved Prolixin! Take Care of Yourself With injections of Prolixin, 4-6 days after the injection, the highest con• centration of the drug in the blood occurs. Then the blood concentration Take Healthsharing of the drug very slowly goes down over A Canadian Women's Health Quarterly the 2-6 weeks. That is why severe muscle reactions and suicidal drug created 'depressions' are most likely to Taking care means more than a yearly pap smear occur 4-6 days after the injection. In addition to the severe muscle It means knowing what questions to ask reactions occurring most frequently 4-6 what treatment to question days after Prolixin injections, the muscle rigidifying-zombifying nature of It means being aware of women's health issues Prolixin is such that I have seen numerous people looking like waxed making an issue of them vegetables 4-8 weeks after their last injections. This is to say nothing of the state of those who get Prolixin every Healthsharing deals only with health issues as they affect women. two weeks, a popular injection Reproduction. occupational health hazards, sexuality. drug abuse, therapy 'schedule' these days. Unlike oral drugs and more. Regular features are: news, letters. resources and reviews. which can be stopped if a person has a severe muscle reaction or allergic reaction; Prolixin once injected lasts for Help us help you take care - Subscribe to Healthsharing at least a month and thus large doses of 'anti-parkinsonian' drugs must be given t------~------for prolixin muscle reactions; inevitably Name: they provide only a partial relief to say Address: nothing of the dangers and drug Postal Code induced 'bummers' created by the anti• Mail cheque to: Healthsharlng. P.O. Box 230. Station M. Toronto M6S 4T3 parkinsonians. ' o Individual $6.75 !J lnst. or Library $13.50 Jutside Canada add $ 150 Phoenix Rising 37

GIVING THEM THE BIRD

In this issue, we are proud to award two well• deserved Phoenix Pheathers for outstanding successes against awesome odds. Our first Pheather goes to the Coalition to Stop Shock in Berkeley, California. The Coalition, consist• ing of nine community and self-help groups of ex• We're awarding this issue's Turkey Tail to the High Park Concerned Citizens Committee for their continued psychiatric inmates and supporters including the Net• work Against Psychiatric Assault (NAP A), succeeded harrassment of the residents of the group home at 114 in banning shock in Berkeley by educating and mobil• Indian Road. Despite losing their battle with City izing thousands of people about the many real horrors Council to change the group home by-law, several of electroshock. Led by ex-psychiatric inmate and committee members repeatedly carried protest signs in shock victim Ted Chabasinski, the Coalition first suc• front of the home for "mentally handicapped" ex• ceeded in putting the issue of shock on the ballot as a prisoners. Some of the residents expressed fears for their referendum by collecting 2500 signatures on a petition personal safety in the face of this kind of blatant intimi• dation. It seems to us that the only people posing any when only 1400 were needed (See Nov.!82 issue.). Then, in a municipal election held last November 2nd, the serious threat to this community are those so-called "concerned citizens." residents of Berkeley voted by a clear majority (62070) to support the shock ban. The ban rules that any psychiatrist or doctor who authorizes or administers electroshock in Berkeley faces both a $500 fine and six months in jail. This is the first time that voters in any city in North America have been given the opportunity TRY to decide whether to accept or reject a so-called medical "treatment" and it represents a very big vic• NON PROFIT ORGANIZATION tory for the International Psychiatric Inmates Libera• tion Movement and all psychiatric inmates who have FOR EX-PSYCH PATIENTS been or will be subjected to this brain-damaging, psychiatric procedure. DEVELOPMENT IN VIDEO,

Our second Pheather is awarded jointly to Justin FILM, DANCE, SPORTS. Clark, David Baker, and Judge John Matheson, three people who fought the system and won. Justin, a 20• NEW ORGANIZATION SEEKS year-old cerebral palsy victim, fought against an appli• cation by his father to have Justin declared mentally MEMBERS TO CREATE incompetent and to have a legal guardian put in charge of his affairs. With the help of his lawyer, David Baker, Executive Director of ARCH (Advocacy OUR POTENTIALS. Resource Centre for the Handicapped), Justin struggled for the right to make decisions about his own life, and TO REALIZE THIS in particular, to choose to leave the Rideau Regional Centre, where he has lived since he was two and to ORGANIZATION YOUR seek a fuller and more independent life in a group home. On November 25, Judge Matheson handed down a compassionate and intelligent verdict which PARTICIPATION IS was a victory for handicapped and! or institutionalized people everywhere when he declared Justin Clark men• NEEDED. tally competent and free to live his own life. (See this issue of Phoenix, page 19.) TEL: 1-416-531-3498 TORONTO DIRECTOR: RONGILLESPIE CALL BETWEEN: 9 A.M.-12 NOON ONLY 38 Phoenix Rising Rlgbt:s ann LORongs Psychiatric Treatment: Your Right to Decide

BY CARLA McKAGUE or she is hallucinating or hearing will probably be a strong temptation to voices, he or she may be judged incom• find you competent if you agree with The law dealing with consent to petent to make treatment decisions. In the doctor's proposal and incompetent medical treatment is of two kinds. First this case, the common law is not en• if you disagree). What he or she has to there is "common law", which is the tirely clear about who, if anyone can decide is whether you have the capa• rules developed by the courts over make the decision. In general, the city to understand the information many years by dealing with specific person's nearest relative is given that given to you and make a logical de• cases. In addition there is "statute power. cision based on it. law", which consists of laws passed by At common law, there is no differ• governments and explicitly written ence between a voluntary and an in• What Is a Legal Consent? down. voluntary inmate with respect to the It makes no difference legally Common law applies except where right to decide about treatment. The whether a consent is in writing or oral, there is statute law to change it. So it is only difference is between the com• and a consent can be withdrawn at any important to understand both the petent and incompetent inmate. time simply by stating that you have common law rules and the written law In several parts of Canada, written changed your mind. However, to be of your province or territory. laws have changed the common law legally valid, a consent must meet three At common law psychiatric treat• position. In British Columbia, Saskat• tests: it must be given by a competent ment, whether in or out of an in• chewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick and person who is legally entitled to give it; stitution, is subject to the same rules as the North West Territories, an invol• it must be informed; and it must be any medical treatment. One of those untary inmate cannot make these voluntary. rules is that the treatment must be con• decisions. In Quebec, the Public What Is "Informed sented to. The only exception is an Curator has the responsibility of emergency situation in which consent Consent"? making decisions for an incompetent The doctor has an obligation to give cannot be given (for example, because psychiatric inmate. the person is unconscious) and in which you enough information so that you In Ontario, the refusal of a com• can make a reasoned decision. He or there is a serious threat that the person petent inmate (or the nearest relative of will die or suffer grave and permanent she should tell you about your con• an incompetent one) to psychiatric dition, describe what will probably physical impairment unless treated. treatment can be challenged by the doc• A consent can be explicit or implicit. happen if you do not undergo treat• tor before a Regional Mental Health ment, explain the effects of the treat• An explicit consent is a written or oral Review Board. This board has the agreement to undergo a particular treat• ment (both good and bad), and tell you power to override a refusal and order about possible alternative treatments. ment. An implicit consent is one given the person to undergo treatment. without particular words of agreement, The doctor is not required to tell you If someone else is given the power to absolutely everything. If a treatment such as holding your arm out for an consent or refuse for you because of injection. has a side effect that is serious but very your incompetency, that other person rare (such as the possibility of dying Who Can Consent? has the responsibility of making the from a blood test), it need not be men• decision you would have made if you Usually the person consenting to or tioned. If a side effect is common but refusing the treatment will be the were competent, if there is any way of not at all serious (such as slight person the doctor wants to treat. knowing what that is. If there is no way stomach bleeding from aspirin), this of knowing your wishes, the person also need not be mentioned. However, that person may be legally should make the decision he or she con• "incompetent" to make the decision. A There is a decision of the Ontario siders to be in your best interests. young child, for example, is not con• Health Disciplines Board which states sidered to be qualified to make a How Can I Be Found that a doctor has an obligation to a decision about treatment, and the Incompetent? person who is taking major tran• responsibility is usually given to the quilizers to discuss with the person the parents. Usually the person who decides risks of tardive dyskinesia (see Phoenix If a person is undergoing severe whether you are competent will be the Rising, vol. 3, no. 2, for a description emotional distress, and especially if he doctor who wants to treat you. (There of this serious and frequently-occurring Phoenix Rising 39

effect). A survey done in Ontario in refuses to give you information or stance", which are worth considering. 1981 by the Coalition On Psychiatric attempts to coerce you into agreeing to If you are successful, the doctor (and Services (COPS), reported in Phoenix treatment, get legal help immediately. any other staff members you have Rising, vol. 2, no. 4, showed that of If none of this works, then continue charged) will have a criminal convic• more than 100 ex-inmates surveyed, to refuse firmly, and preferably in the tion. The difficulty here is that once many of whom were on these drugs, presence of witnesses. It is unwise, you have laid the charge the Crown not one was told about T .D. In fact, however, to resist physically, as in some Attorney has the right to prosecute on few were given any information about places the law allows the doctor to use your behalf, and also the right to drop their treatment beyond vague assu• drugs to "restrain" you, and this may the charge if he feels it is not justified. rances that "this will help you". If you well provide the doctor with an excuse Second, you can charge a violation are found incompetent, this medical in• for drugging you to prevent harm to of the mental health legislation of your formation must be given to the person the staff or other inmates. province or territory. In Ontario, for deciding for you. What Can I Do If I Have example, anyone violating the Mental What is "Voluntary Been Treated Without Health Act may be fined up to $10,000, Consent"? Consent? and some other provinces provide for fines or imprisonment. The same "Voluntary" means much more than If you have been treated in a way problem arises with respect to the right that is against the law, consider taking not being physically forced to undergo of the Crown Attorney to take over treatment. The doctor may not threaten legal action against the doctor or in• and dismiss your charges. stitution. One possibility is to file a you with commitment, discharge, loss Third, you can bring a civil suit for of privileges or any other kind of complaint with your provincial College damages. This will only work if you of Physicians and Surgeons. The reprisal if you refuse. As well, he or she can prove that you were in fact College will look into your complaint may not try to persuade you by saying damaged by the unauthorized treat• that you will be released earlier or get and decide whether it is serious enough ment - for example, that ECT for a Discipline Board hearing. (Only some other benefit if you agree. You affected your memory, or lithium must reach your decision without about one complaint in twenty gets this caused kidney damage, or Haldol far). If the Discipline Board decides threats or promises of any kind. produced tardive dyskinesia. If you are your complaint is justified, it can re• The COPS survey mentioned above successful, the doctor or institution will primand the doctor, suspend him, or found that this requirement is routinely have to pay you damages to remove him from the rolls immediately. ignored in Ontario psychiatric instit• compensate for your inj ury. You utions. There are many cases of people A decision of the College can be should be aware that this kind of suit being "persuaded" to accept treatment appealed to the Health Disciplines Board. can take a long time and can be very they want to refuse (and many more of expensive, and that the chances of people being forcibly treated in spite of winning are not very good. their refusal). How Can I Assert How Can I Get My Right to Decide? Legal Help? First, know the law in your province 'The role of consent, es• If you cannot afford to pay a lawyer, or territory, and what your rights are. peciallyfor the history and check with the Legal Aid Society in your province. The Society will tell you Second, if you think there is a danger epistemology of psychiatry, is that at some time in the future you will whether you qualify for free legal assis• be found incompetent, make sure your so overarching in importance tance from a Legal Aid Clinic or by wishes are known now. Go to a lawyer that it is impossible to exag• way of a Legal Aid Certificate. (Some or a legal clinic and ask to have a gerate it ... it is consent and provinces have both these options formal declaration drawn up stating available. while some have only one). If that if you are ever found incompetent, consent alone that justifies you have a good case, you should be you do not wish to have a particular cure and treatment (as able to get legal help at little or no cost treatment or treatments authorized on opposedtocon"olandto~ to you, although the Legal Aid Plan your behalf. If possible, get a state• may put strict limits on how much ment from a psychiatrist that at the ture). " time and money your lawyer can spend time of making this declaration you are - Thomas Szasz, M.D. on your case. legally competent to make such a Schizophrenia: The Conclusion decision. Arrange with the lawyer that Sacred Symbol of The law does provide some pro• if and when you are declared incom• tection (although not enough) of your petent, he or she will approach the hos• Psychiatry (Basic right to make your own decisions about pital on your behalf and argue that the Books, 1976, p. 134) psychiatric treatment. But this pro• person giving the substituted consent is tection is useless so long as doctors and bound by your wishes. If possfble, other psychiatric professionals know discuss your wishes in advance with the that they can ignore the law safely person who would be authorized to because inmates are too afraid or too decide for you. upset or too ignorant of the law to Third, if you are found incompetent, A second possibility is court action, exercise their legal rights. The only way consider getting legal help to challenge which can be of three different kinds. to make sure that our rights are pro• that finding in court. First, you can lay charges under the tected is to insist upon them, and to Fourth, make it clear to your doctor Criminal Code of assault and battery, take action against people who infringe that you know the legal requirements since any unauthorized touching is upon them. about information and voluntariness, legally a battery. There are other Carla McKague is a Toronto lawyer, and that if the doctor does not comply possible criminal charges as well, such an ex-psychiatric inmate, and an ON you will consult a lawyer. If the doctor as "administering a noxious sub- OUR 0WN member. 40 Phoenix Rising

Anti-psychiatry scathing attack on psychoanalysis, there Bibliography is too much theorizing, but personal protest pieces by Judi Chamberlin, (Sixth Instalment) Marsha Enomoto, barbara Findlay and Barbara Joyce are well worth reading. Szasz, Thomas S. The Myth of Psy• chotherapy. Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday (1978), Prepared by Don Weitz paper, $6.50. Psychotherapy is dissected ana ex• Chamberlin, Judi. On Our Own: inmates' rights, and a reluctance to Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the attack institutional psychiatry. posed as rhetoric, not "treatment". Freud, Jung and other founders of New York: Scheflin, Alan W., and Opton, Edward Mental Health System. modern psychotherapy are severely Hawthorn Books, Inc. (1978); M. Jr. New The Mind Manipulators. criticized for medicalizing the art of York: Paddington Press Ltd. (1978), McGraw-Hili (1979), paper, $6.50. conversation and persuasion. Another An extremely articulate and power• hardcover. $14.95. major assault on the medical model "A scholarly, heavily annotated yet ful attack on the psychiatric system which Szasz began in 1961 with pub• including the medical model by an out• readable account of the growth of lication of the Myth of Mental Illness. standing ex-inmate activist in the Psy• mind-control technology, including chiatric Inmates Liberation Movement. lobotomy and the newer forms of psy• Wertham, Frederic. A Sign For Cain. Ex-inmate-controlled residences, crisis chosurgery, electronic brain stimula• New York: Macmillan (1966), hard• centres, drop-ins and support groups tion, chemical castration, and electro• cover, $17.95, (paperback not avail• are advocated as alternatives to psy• shock. The authors explore the validity able). chiatric institutions. Essential reading of 'brainwashing' and hypnosis as a A psychiatrist with a social con• for all ex-inmates, Movement activists means of explaining the dominance of science explores and condemns all and others committed to radically some individuals over others." (Re• forms of human violence. The book changing the "system. " printed from PsychiatryAs Social Con• features the first published expose of the mass murder of hundreds of thou• Field, Ellen. The White Shirts. Self trol: An Annotated Bibliography by Network Against Psychiatric Assault). sands of psychiatric inmates (people published (1964). Available from "devoid of value" or "useless eaters") author: P.O. Box 4132, Town Center Schrag, Peter. Mind Control. New by German psychiatrists in Nazi Station, Irvine, CA. 92716. (price un• York: Pantheon (1978), hardcover, $10. Germany in the early 1930s - a known). " ... a stinging indictment of the prelude to the genocide in Nazi con• A collection of hard-hitting personal mind controllers, those who use mind centration camps. See Ch. 9, "The manipulation (psychiatric propaganda), accounts, essays and poems by an Euthanasia Murders," 150-186. angry psychiatric survivor who clearly psychotherapy (temporary or sees through and rebels against psy• permanent injury to the brain by means NOTE: Psychiatry As Social Control: chiatric "treatment" as social control. of psychoactive drugs, electroshock, An Annotated Bibliography is an ex• One of the earliest examples of protest psychosurgery) in their attempts to cellent anti-psychiatry bibliography with over 60 references. It was com• writing coming out of the Movement. maintain and reinforce the family and piled by members of Network Against Marks, John. The CIA and Mind Con• social status quo. The implicit message trol: The Search for the Manchurian of this book is a wa~ning: we face a Psychiatric Assault (NAPA/Califor• nia), Alliance for the Liberation of Candidate. An alarming expose of the growing epidemic not of 'mental ill• CIA's uses and results of behaviorall ness' but of psychiatric 'treatment' to Mental Patients (ALMP / Philadelphia) and Mental Patients Liberation Front mind control techniques during the control and punish the socially different 1950s and 1960s in the United States, (... labeled mentally ill) ... " (MPLF/Boston). Copies are available for $1 each plus 30¢ for mailing from: Canada and Europe. The complicity (Reprinted from Psychiatry As Social Control: An Annotated Bibliography NAPA, 558 Capp St., San Francisco, of some high-ranking psychiatrists and CA. 94110, or ALMP, 112 St. 16th St., psychologists is clearly revealed. A mas• by Network Against Psychiatric No. 1305, Philadelphia, PA. 19102. terpiece of investigative reporting. Assault). Marshall, John. Madness: An Indict• Sexton, Anne. To Bedlam And Part ment of the Mental Health System in Way Back. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Ontario. (Based on the public inquiry Company (1960), paper, $5.50. commissioned by the Ontario Public A brilliant collection of poignant and Service Employees Union) Toronto: haunting poems, many of which touch OPSEU (1982), paper, $7.95. on the poet's alienation and incar• An investigative reporter's critique of ceration in a psychiatric institution. Ontario's "mental health system" from Smith, Dorothy E., and David, Sara J. a staff perspective with some reason• (Eds.). Women Look At Psychiatry. able recommendations for change, in• Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers. cluding a public investigation into psy• (price unknown, out of print). chiatric "treatment" in the province. A good collection of Canadian writ• However, the book is considerably ings by a few ex-psychiatric inmates weakened by its lack of testimony from and feminist therapists attacking sexism ex-psychiatric inmates, its token criti• and oppression in psychiatry. With the cism of staff abuses or violations of exception of Eve-Lynne Rubin's

42 Phoenix Rising

Continued from page 12. 11. World Health Organization. Report coma was introduced. When a toxin of the International Pilot Study of adrenal steroid waspostulated, some 1. E. Fuller Torrey. Schizophrenia and Schizophrenia. Vol. I: results of the adrenalectomies (surgical removal of Civilization. N. Y.: J. Aronson, 1980, p. Initial Evaluation Phase. Geneva, 1973, adrenal glands) were done. When 4. p.381. defective neural circuitry was suspected, 2. Statistics Canada. Mental Health 12. American Psychiatric Association. lobotomies were extensively performed c.'fatistics.v.I: Institutional Admissions . Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of . . . it became clear that results were ( :ttawa; 1978 (most recent year for Mental Disorders. Third Edition. erratic and frequently useless and had which national figures available). Washington, D.C.: American seriously damaging side effects. Con• 3. . Asylums: Essays On Psychiatric Association, 1980, pp. 188• current laboratory investigations failed the Social Situation of Mental Patients 189. to demonstrate anatomical or chemical and Other Inmates. Garden City, N. Y.: 13. Editorial, "Diagnosis: A New Era", lesions in schizophrenia." (pp. 320-321) Doubleday, 1961. Esp. see ch., "The Schizophrenia Bulletin no. 11, (winter "Antipsychotic" or neuroleptic drugs Moral Career of the Mental Patient", 1974),pp. 18-20. are no exception, yet these investigators pp. 125-169. Probably the best socio• 14. R.D. Laing. The Politics of Ex• defend their continued use despite their logical account of how people are sys• perience. Middlesex, England: Penguin, many, permanently damaging "side tematically dehumanized, labeled and 1967. Also see Laing, The Divided Self, effects", i.e. tardive dyskinesia or brain stigmatized by psychiatric institutions. Middlesex, England: Pelican, 1965. damage. Also see, Max Fink, "EST and 4. August B. Hollingshead and Fritz C. 15. Cited in Szasz, op. cit., 1976, p. 113. Other Somatic Therapies of Schizo• Redlich. Social Class and Mental Illness: 16. American Psychiatric Association. phrenia", in L. Bellak, op; cit., 1979. A Community Study. N. Y.: Wiley, Megavitamin and Orthomolecular Fink actually admits that electroshock, 1958. The classic study of classism in Therapy in Psychiatry: A Report of the insulin coma and psychosurgery 'work' psychiatry based on a comprehensive APA Task Force on Vitamin Therapy in by causing brain damage: " ... a and follow-up studies in New Haven, Psychiatry. Washington, D.C.: greater degree of brain damage was con• Conn.; its major findings and con• American Psychiatric Association, 1973. sidered useful in ameliorating symp• clusions are still relevant and valid. Megavitamin therapy (large doses of toms in some patients. It is probable 5. E.E. Ackernecht. Rudolph Virchow: niacin, nicotinic acid or vitamin B3) and that the degree of brain dysfunction is Doctor, Statesman, Anthropologist. other claims of orthomolecular an important factor in the improvement Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, advocates (Hoffer and Osmond) are in symptoms after the use of any of 1953. sharply criticized as unsubstantiated and these 'organic' treatments in schizo• 6. Thomas S. Szasz. Schizophrenia: The worthless curesfor schizophrenia (over phrenia." (p. 360, my underlining) Sacred Symbol of Psychiatry. N. Y.: 100studies reviewed). Unfortunately, 24. . The History of Basic Books, 1976. See esp. ch., the APA is not equally critical of other Shock Treatment. Self-published, 1978. "Psychiatry: The Model of the Syphilitic types of 'cure' or 'treatment'such as (Copies availablefrom Leonard R. Mind", pp. 3-44; Szasz clearly shows "antipsychotic" drugs and electroshock. Frank, 2300 Webster St., San Francisco, how psychiatry illegitimately applied the 17. H. Y. Meltzer. "Biochemical Studies CA 94115.) For other excellent, hard• medical model to non-medical problems in Schizophrenia, " in L. Bellak, ed., hitting exposes, see: Peter R. Breggin, using general paresis as its specific Disorders of the Schizophrenia Syn• Electroshock: Its Brain-disabling model. Also see Szasz, The Myth 9f drome. N. Y.: Basic Books, 1979, p. 76. Effects, N. Y.: Springer, 1979; John Mental Illness, N. Y.: Harper & Row 18. Theodore R. Sarbin and James C. FriedberK, Shock Treatment Is Not (revised edition), 1974, pp. 9-13. Mancuso. Schizophrenia: Medical Good For Your Brain, San Francisco: 7. E. Fuller Torrey. The Death of Diagnosis or Moral Verdict. N. Y.: Glide, 1976; Phoenix Rising, vol. 1, no. Psychiatry. Radnor, Pa: Chilton Book Pergamon Press, 1980,p. 145. 3 (/aIl1980) - shock issue. Company, 1974. See esp. ch., "An 19. Robert Cancro. "The Genetic 25. B.A. Martin, et ai. The Clarke Historical Perspective: Origins of the Studies of the Schizophrenic Syndrome: Institute Experience With Electrocon• Medical Model", pp. 6-26 - an A Review of Their Clinical vulsive Therapy: Treatment Evaluation excellent discussion of the growth of the Implications," in L. Bellak, op. cit., pp. and Standards of Practice. Unpublished. medical model in psychiatry; the rest of 136-151. Paper delivered at the Canadian the book reveals its disastrous results. Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting 20. Sarbin and Mancuso, op. cit., p. 150 8. Szasz, op. dt., 1976. in Montreal (September 1982). A clear 9. Eugen Bleuler. Dementia Praecox or 21. Don Weitz. "The Tardive Dyskin• admission that the 'Clarke' is using The Group of Schizophrenias. N. Y.: esia Epidemic". Phoenix Rising, vol. 3, electroshock as a major 'treatment' for International Universities Press, 1950. no. 2 (November 1982), pp. 28-29. Also schizophrenia. (The Clarke Institute of (First edition published in German, see Dr. Caligari, "The Tardive Dys• Psychiatry is in Toronto.) 1911). kinesia Epidemic. " Madness Network 26. Szasz, op. cit., 1976, pp. 14-17, 33• 10. Ibid., pp. 279, 296. Also see E. News, vol. 5, no. 3 (winter 1979), pp. 34, 74,197. Bleuler, Autistic Undisciplined Thinking 20-21. 27. Sarbin and Mancuso, op. cit., pp. in Medicine and How To Overcome It. 22. Don Weitz. "Phenothiazine-related 81-104. Translated and edited by Ernest Harms. deaths. " Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. 4, 28. Daniel L. Rosenhan. On Being Sane Darien, Conn.: Hafner Publishing pp.23-25. In Insane Places. Science, vol. 179, Company, 1970. (Firstpublished in 23. M.A. Lipton and G.B. Burnett. January 19, 1973, pp. 250-258. German, 1919). A scathing attack on "Pharmacological Treatment of Schizo• 29. Sarbin and Mancuso, op. cit" pp. many medical and psychiatric practices phrenia," in L. Bellak, op. cit., pp. 320• 94-95; also see B.M. Braginsky and at the time, including the diagnosis and 352. "In the early thirties, when schizo• D.D. Braginsky, Mainstream treatment of schizophrenia. This con• phrenia and epilepsy were thought to be Psychology: A Critique, N. Y.: Holt, troversial critique is rarely, if ever, incompatible, convulsive therapy with Rinehart & Winston, 1974. mentioned in the current psychiatric electric shock or with metrazol was ex• 30. Ibid., pp. 152-161. literature. Bleuler criticizes the disease tensively used. When schizophrenia was 31. Ibid., p. 169. model of schizophrenia - a contra• considered to be a product of central 32. Ibid., 170. diction of his earlier work. nervous system hyperactivity, insulin 33. Szasz, op. cit., 1976, pp. 135-136. Phoenix Rising 43 cornrnenLaR~

Mental health and violence against women: a feminist ex-inmate analysis

This position paper is the result of a workshop conducted at the 10th Annual International Conference on Human Rights and Psychiatric Oppression, held in Toronto, Canada, on the 14-18 of May, 1982. We do not claim to be representative of all female ex-inmates, given our feminist perspective, our largely middle-class values, our race (white and North American), and our age (24-37). The members of the workshop met to discuss alternatives to the mental health system in dealing with issues of violence against women. As female ex-inmates we have concerns such as rape, battery, expression of anger, that need to be addressed from our particular perspective. As feminist survivors of psychiatry and violence, we have formulated an analysis which has not been articulated by either the women's movement or the anti-psychiatry movement. 44 Phoenix Rising

Psychiatry and Violence Against to incest and battery. Certain groups Our status as madwomen is used Women are Related of women are particularly vulnerable against us: we're lying, we're hallu• 1. We are raped, battered and blamed. according to their status in society: cinating, or it doesn't matter any• We are told that we have asked for women who are prostitutes or on way. it, and our childhoods are endlessly welfare are taken less seriously than psychoanalyzed to find the causes of white, middle-class married mothers 5. Our sisters, feminist therapists, also our "masochistic" behaviour. This of two. This causes women to be• fail us. They label us, reject us, or perpetuates the cultural acceptance come divided amongst themselves, just don't see the connections we of violence against women by by denying the pervasiveness of vio• do. "blaming the victim" . lence in our culture and in all of our lives. The similarities in our exper• 6. We join the ex-inmate movement, 2. When we react by getting upset and iences with violence are far more im• and expect to find sexism, but will getting angry at being raped, batter• portant than the particular details or not accept the failure of members to ed, pushed around and down, we circumstances of our victimization. recognize it and be accountable for get therapy, we get treatment, we get it. locked up in mental institutions. 4. As women, our credibility is challen• 7. Finally, we recognize that we are in There, we are subject to further ged, our words are discounted, re• a position of relative privilege. We sexual harrassment. gardless of what we say. If we out• are out of the psychiatric system, we wardly express our pain by crying are articulate, and the support we 3. When we do turn for support to or shaking with rage, we are labeled get from each other gives us the hysterical. On the other hand, if we the system, we learn several things. strength to speak out. Our passion Men define and judge our exper• remain calm, the experience of our victimization is denied or not taken and urgency derive from the aware• ience in terms of quality and quan• ness of all the women who are truly tity: rape on the street by a stranger seriously. For ex-inmates, or any women with a record of "mental ill• powerless; in institutions or after• compared to rape by an acquain• care, restrained, secluded, drugged, tance, lover or stranger, compared ness" this problem is exacerbated. shocked, raped and battered. We have a responsibility to protest what is happening to our sisters.

Where Do We Turn When We Are Raped or Battered? Raped or battered, we suffer over• whelming feelings including rage, shame, humiliation, powerlessness, self• doubt and guilt. Where do we turn? Ideally, we would turn to our friends, family and community, expressing our anger and sadness safely, and mobi• lizing our resources in struggle for change. Sometimes, and to some degree, this happens. Unfortunately, these resources for support are usually not available to us, for a variety of reasons. One set of concerns arises from cul• tural attitudes which are male defined and violent. When we turn to the people we love, we find that it is still unacceptable to admit that we have been victims of rape or battering. We arejudged, or blamed, or politely ig• nored. It is also unacceptable to admit a need or desire for support. The second set of concerns has to do with race, class, status, and geography. Some of us have access to resources over which we are more or less in control. For instance, white middle• class feminists may receive support from some women's groups when raped or battered. Some of us can afford to take a vacation or even move if we need to get away from dangerous or abusive living situations. A wealthy woman who protests battering has a better chance of buying sympathetic and competent legal assistance. A woman who can visit a private physician or nurse practitioner or other Phoenix Rising 45 health care giver is in a much· better mission of mental health profes• are seen as "more raped" and are position than one who must go to an sionals, it is impossible to distin• therefore more readily believed. emergency room for first aid, and guish between rapists and "normal" b) When we label our experiences in there are countless other ways in which men. terms of syndromes, these artificial women of colour, poor women, women 2. Increasingly, our experiences with distinctions act as barriers to recog• who are prostitutes, single women, and violence are described in terms of nizing our common experience, lesbians are denied help. pathological syndromes. For supporting each other and working If we admit that we have been raped example, there have appeared in the together for change. or battered, need support, or are hurt literature references to "rape trauma c) This delineation is a theft of our by our victimization, we are very likely syndrome", "incest survivors' syn• right and our responsibility to des• to come into some contact with the drome" and "battered woman's cribe our own oppression. mental health system. Some of us turn syndrome". Women have uncriti• d) The delineation of symptoms and re• to counsellors or therapists because we cally welcomed this acknowledge• actions implies a correct response, are told that this is the place to go if we ment of problems that, until re• which seeks to further control us. are in emotional distress. Some of us cently, were never discussed. As The involvement of the mental health know that we need to talk to other feminist ex-inmates, we regard as women about what is happening to us, destructive the involvement of men• system in issues of violence against women tranquilizes us, either literally and the only place to find each other tal health "experts" in this discus• may be in a "support group" in a crisis sion. We don't need psychologists to or figuratively. At worst, some of us are committed to institutions, and there centre or clinic within the mental health validate our experience. Some of the we are subjected to the most blatant system. Others of us are turned into the negative effects of this are: mental health system because we forms of psychiatric oppression: forced protest or show our pain. A battered a) A hierarchy is created based on the drugging, shock, isolation and circumstances of our assault. A restraint. Even at best, in relatively sup• woman who knocks on neighbours' doors, screams for help, or repeatedly woman who is gang-raped or raped portive, sympathetic and non-coercive situations, we are talked out of our calls the police runs a serious risk of by a stranger on the street is seen as being committed to a mental institu• having undergone a "better rape" anger or "helped" to direct it in more tion. This is particularly true for than a woman who has been raped "appropriate" ways. The mental health system is insid• women less valued by the dominant by an acquaintance. However, a wo• iously taking over the fight against culture, including black women or man who is raped by her husband or the man with whom she is inti• women without economic power. In• violence against women. In the face of dwindling financial resources, mental creasingly, we even find that grass• mately involved is seen as patholo• health centres are scrambling for new roots or feminist alternative support gical for remaining in the relation• clients and popular projects to be systems are being infiltrated, co-opted, ship. Women who have been raped funded. Women's centres are being co- or swallowed whole by the mental by men of a "lower" race or class health system.

How The Mental Health System Acts Against Us 1. The first problem is that the mental health system is involved at all. Vio• lence against women is not a per• sonal or individual issue, but a poli• tical reality. The concept of "mental health" implies a corresponding pathology, but women who are sur• vivors of violence are not ill. The focus on the individual is destruc• tive for two reasons. Firstly, focus- • sing on the individual woman leads to blaming the victim, either overtly, or through the therapeutic process which searches for hidden motiva• tion. Secondly, this focus leads to an assessment of the rapist/woman• violator as suffering from an indivi• dual pathology. He is thus relieved of responsibility for his actions, and the socio-cultural values en• couraging violence against women are obscured. We know that rapist! woman-violators are not peculiar. Women's experience attests to this fact. All women are aware that ,• men assume our availability and ac• cess to our bodies. This constant is , manifested in every facet of our \. lives; in advertising, in harrassment on the street, in the media and in •••• our relationships. Even by the ad- \\ 46 Phoenix Rising

opted, at least in the United States, by professional privilege to commit women process. This is a more subtle and in• becoming professionalized and by ac• against their will, " for their own sidious form of the "blame the victim" cepting monies from mental health good". This imbalance in power cannot theory which has been used to explain agencies. Another example arises in the be overcome. Even more unfortunate is virtually every kind of oppression. In fight for compensation for victims of the fact that feminists in growing addition, this argument totally ignores violent crime. Where compensation is numbers are becoming therapists, thus class issues. Few women can afford to provided at all, as in Canada, valida• supporting the notion of extreme buy a refrigerator - or an hour of talk tion of pain and suffering as well as of emotions as illness with the need for - when they are now making less than medical expenses is required. We reject hierarchical professional intervention. 59¢ for every dollar a white man makes the notion that we need a psychiatrist's The kind of "patients" feminist in North America. Estimates show that note to prove that we are upset about therapists want and attract are not at this figure will be even lower for our assaults. all dissimilar to the type of female women of colour. How does an hour of Why Feminist Therapy Has Failed Us patients Schofield (1960) found with talk change the fact that incest, rape, Women in a patriarchal culture face whom male therapists "felt they were battery and harrassment are cultural threats of violence and oppression on a most efficient and effective with in norms? All therapies are an abstrac• daily basis. Feminism is a base of therapy". The patient was described as tion of reality which keep women support for women to come together to being between the ages of 20-40, talking and not acting. Describing our share collective strategies on how to without any advanced education. This experience as rape syndromes, as symp• deal with our common oppression. has been described as the "Y A VIS toms of incest victims, or by the proper Women come to the Movement with syndrome": young, attractive, verbal, psychiatric label for battered women huge expectations and needs for intelligent and successful, or in other does not change our experience. support, and, often disappointed, turn words, "normal". Continuing to treat Feminist therapies, like all other to feminist therapy to fill that void. "normal" problems as though they therapies, are not looking to the sur• This and other uses of feminist therapy were abnormal not only preys on vivors for guidance, but ate instead are extremely problematic to us as women's needs for support via an ex• relying on clinical judgement. They are feminists who are former psychiatric ploitative capitalistic relationship, but not asking us, they are placating us. inmates who recognize therapy for what also perpetuates and abnormalizes care• Treating our anger and our pain as ill• it is: a mechanism of social control. giving. This does nothing to change nesses gets therapists paid by the Treating women's emotions as illness women's perceptions of ourselves as insurance schemes, but leaves us feeling does nothing to "restore sanity". "sick", and in need of "objective'~, more "crazy". Nor have feminist thera• Instead, this bastardization of "professional" treatment. Instead, by pists taken a position on other critical caregiving is a direct contradiction to continuing to "treat" women in "pro• issues: civil commitment, coercive the central tenet of feminism, Le., that fessional therapeutic" relationships, voluntary commitment, shock, forced the personal is political. The history of one fosters those self-doubts about drugging. How then are we to trust professionalization of medical treat• one's mental health. If women are you? And finally, feminist therapy is a ment should give us as feminists some treated in abnormal ways, we will feel contradiction in feminist terms. ideas about the problems of this hierar• abnormal, and will expect others to Feminism began and continues to chical misogynist structure. Men became view us as such. survive relying on consciousness raising frightened of the power of women How can feminist therapists real• as the essence for women to come practicing healing arts, labeling them istically expect us, the victims of together and support each other, and to witches and lesbians and worked to des• psychiatry, to believe that this or any collectively define our issues. We are troy them. other "radical therapy" is different and aware of the harmful consequences of Individualizing, personalizing, or will bring about any real change, when having "professionals" define and deal therapizing the very real social• they cannot clearly delineate what with our issues. Feminist therapy is a cultural, psychological, and physical feminist therapy is or critically dif• part of the psychiatric system and as oppression in women's lives isolates ferentiate between feminist therapy and such it is a method of social control women from themselves, each other, other forms of psychiatric oppression? which mirrors larger society. and collective action. This process A somewhat dated, but still relevant A Place for Anger leaves us without a healthy way to talk study by Broverman et. al. (1970) illus• Our anger is real. Our anger at our about and deal with our feelings. As trated that clinicians, both male and experiences of oppression as women soon as a woman's feelings become female, utilize masculine definitions of and as psychiatric inmates, of being too intense, they are fragmented, seg• mentally healthy behaviour. It is not al• raped, beaten, locked up, drugged, mented, and isolated to the profession• together surprising that those character• shocked, is valid and strong. It is not a al therapeutic realm. Therapy is so istics associated with being a mental "symptom" to be drugged or powerful that it can not only cure the patient - passive, dependent, manipu• therapized away. It is, instead, a source victim, but also cures the victimizer. lative, and indecisive - also fit the of our power, a fuel for our outrage Would it not be healthier to cure the di• socially prescribed role for women in and our activism. We will not allow sease? this culture. The feminist therapy anyone - psychiatrist or feminist As long as feminist therapy exists, movement has suggested that therapist - to convince us that we are with its arbitrary distinctions between consumers of their services need to sick because we are enraged, because therapist and patient, and between become better consumers by learning we refuse to calm down and "adjust" women who are well enough to be how to choose a therapist. This "How to a "reality" that defines us as helped by feminist therapy and those to Buy a Refrigerator" argument not inferior. We completely reject the idea "too sick" and in need of institution• only diminishes the therapist's res• that there is an inappropriate degree of alization, so will psychiatry as a method ponsibility, but also ignores women anger, an inappropriate length of time of social control for all women. All who have had all choice removed in for our anger, or an inappropriate women are vulnerable to the excesses of their lives, most directly by the legal object for our anger. We rejoice in our the psychiatric system. Feminist thera• system, and more indirectly by the identities as madwomen, as furies, pists, like all therapists, maintain the coercive nature of the therapeutic strong and proud. Phoenix Rising 47

A Summary of Our Analysis siveness of misogynous assault, and our own self-interest to stay together. If The powers that stand behind the the fact that this violence is a deli• lesbians are unsafe and unvalued, every systematic attacks on people who are berate strategy for social control. one of us is in trouble. If the rape of labeled "mentally ill" are the same We challenge them to stop rape and women of colour is condoned, then all powers that stand behind woman• abuse. women are potential victims. If we fail hating in the lives of all women, behind 3. We ask our brothers in the ex-inmate to recognize that a husband forcing sex the continuation of violence against /anti-psychiatry movement to recog• on a woman is rape, then we are saying women. This power is contained in our nize the sexism in the movement, at that the men we choose always have economic system, within the system of this conference, and in their rela• access to our bodies. If it is acceptable male supremacy. As feminists and ex• tionships. We ask neither for an ad• to rape or beat up prostitutes, then not psychiatric inmates, this is the point mission nor a denial of guilt, but a a single one of us is safe. If where issues of violence against women willingness to develop an analysis madwomen, "retarded" women, or and psychiatric assault come together. of this sexism, and a commitment to women prisoners are acceptable targets The psychiatric system is, in effect, a develop strategies for change. for violence, we can all be subject to microcosm of society. Both play an im• 4. We all have a responsibility to be assault. We speak here because silence portant role in defining how society will aware of the role of class, race, and is complicity, and we will not consent operate. In western capitalist society, status in the violation of women. to assault on any woman. Each of us is men are responsible for participation in We accept this responsibility perso• precious, unique and valuable. the labour force, while women are nally for ourselves, and most expli• Virginia Raymond, Austin, Texas expected to be primarily child care pro• citly refuse to take part in an anti• Dana Lear, On Our Own, Toronto viders, to reproduce the labour force. Rene Bostick, Columbus, Ohio These sexual roles have become defined rape movement that lends credibility or strength to an attack on people Laurie Bradford, Big Mama Rag, as "normal". However, the psychiatric of colour. Denver, Colorado professionals have defined these roles in We know that it is important to Judi Chamberlin, Summerville, terms of pathology. The male sex-role recognize the value of the least power• Massachusetts is generally regarded as "mentally ful among us, not only because we care Susan Price, Toronto healthy", while the female sex-roles are about our sisters, but because it is in Jeanne Dumont, Ithaca, New York "mentally unhealthy". Thus, women are placed in a position whereby, to be healthy women, we must be "unhealthy people", and to be "healthy people", we must be unhealthy women. Women become both "normal" and "abnormal" at the same time. Furthermore, when one defines another human being as "abnormal" or *It's "different", one can more easily justify About any maltreatment, including rape, battering and other violence. In the Time... extreme, we see those defined as "different" (Jews, mentally retarded, *It's about \ ~ etc. in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's time we had' Russia) as examples of justified women judges violence against those who are different. in the Supreme Court. Just as the psychiatric system serves *It's about time to recognize the purposes of social and economic the rights of Indian Women. control around the world, so violence *It's about time to give against women serves the social and welfare mothers a chance. economic control of women. As female ex-inmates, we take back *It's about time to change the pride and dignity of self. We take back our credibility. We demand the *It'scourtaboutprocedurestime womenfor rapepen-cases. right and power to define our own sioners had a decent income. needs, issues, and most importantly, *Isn't it about time ou r----:-:------, our own strategy for support and Subrc"pt,on/ Abonnemenl I political action, without "professional" su scrt e to tatus 0 I Ra.d8.00fo.4i •••••• TariU8.00pou,4nu"",= I intervention. lV.?W omen ews. I, o..r...sondU.S.Insmutions S1200moo OrpnlSmeIO"ue·me' •• $1200t••••.Um.l1l.00 I Where We Go From Here Tm~ether, with a strong, I<>neYeu/un.n .-- 1. We challenge the feminist com• 'f1i2 d 1 f l'k I TwoY•••• /douuns .--- munity to recognize our experience unI"-:-~""T"-----Ie p at orm...•------,!II e I Dona,ion/Conuioo.ion •--- and analysis as ex-inmate women, __'tatus" we can change I TOl.I/VOmon cheque••••pourroo""Hi·inelIe montant •••de $ _ rather than ignoring us, rejecting us the way women live. ! N.me/Nom, _ as sick or crazy, or being embar• 'b' I Address/ AdrCSR rassed by us. In particular, we ask * It s a out tIme. I u

On Our Own gave its annual The Ministry of Health has given us On Our Own has decided to try to Christmas Party on December 26th for funds under their Winter Experience provide a monthly dinner before the its members, featuring a traditional Program to enable On Our Own to hire general meeting on the last Thursday of turkey dinner and dance. Many thanks nine people at minimum wage for 20 every month, for the members go to all On Our Own members who weeks. This has greatly increased our attending the meeting. This will hope• worked so hard at making it a BIG staff in the store, the Drop-In Centre fully encourage members to attend success. A big THANK YOU also goes and the office. On Our Own has always these meetings. Anyone wishing to help to the Red Cross who donated food had members working in the store and out or donate goods for these dinners hampers and toys for our members to the Drop-In Centre on a volunteer can call the On Our Own office (699• make the season a little merrier. basis, but as a result of these new 3192). hirings, the need for volunteers will not The Drop-In Centre is now open 7 GRANT NEWS be as great for the next 20 weeks. After days a week for members of On Our Last year, a grant received from the that period, however, we will again be Own - on Monday to Saturday from 5 City of Toronto under the Community in need of members volunteering to to 11 pm and on Sunday from 1 to 11 Economic Development grant enabled help in the Mad Market and the Drop• pm. Two of the people hired under the us to pay the store manager's salary In Centre. Winter Experience Program will be and part of our bookkeeper's salary. We are now seeking funding to running the social recreation program This year, the Community Develop• enable us to get the Mad Grapevine out in the Drop-In. As well, in the future, ment grant was increased, allowing us to its members and supporters on a we hope to expand the hours in which to hire an assistant store manager monthly basis rather than every other the Drop-In will be open. Keep (George Lefebvre) and increase the month. If any member of On Our Own watching the Mad Grapevine for hours of our truck driver (Roger An• wants to receive the newsletter and further details. New programs include: derson) to full-time, as well as in• hasn't as of yet, call the office (699• regular film nights, dances, a women's creasing the salary of our store 3192) and ask to be put on the mailing rap group, cooking classes and bing&. manager, Hope Scoville. It is largely list. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, due to Hope's efforts that the Mad The last general meeting was held on you can attend the Social Recreation Market has been doing so well this December 30 and two new board Committee Meeting every Monday at year. members were elected. 7:00 pm.

•.• IS A NON-PROFIT USED GOODS STORE RUN BY MEMBERS OF ON OUR OWN ( a self-help fJ(~ group of ex-psychiatric in• mates).

ALL MERCHANDISE IS DONATED. WE WILL PICK UP ANYWHERE IN ~A!) ,A(AlfkET THE CITY. WE HAVE THE BEST DEALS IN TOWN ON ALL USED GOODS.

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OPEN MONDAY - SATURDAY 9am - 7pm 690-9807 MANAGER: HOPE SCOVILLE 000000000000000000000000000000000000 o 0 o 0 ~ PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE ~ o 0 o 0 o *Phoenix Rising, vol. 1, no. 2.1. PrisonBoardingpsychiatry;homes inThorazine;Toronto; Valium;blindnessgaysandandemotionalpsychiatry;problems;and morecommitment;- not availableand more.at present. $2.50 0 o *Phoenix Rising, voil. 1, no. 3. Electroshock; Haidol; how to say no to treatment; a Toronto drug death; and more. $2.~0 0 o *Phoenixand more.Rising, vol. 1, no. 4. Women and psychiatry; lithium; involuntary sterilization; battling the insurance companies; $2.50 0 o *Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. 1. From Kingston Psychiatric to City Hall - an alderman's story; tricyclic antidepressants; 0 access to psychiatric records; and more. $2.50 o *Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. 2. Kids and psychiatry; Ritalin; informed concent; special education; and more. $2.50 0 o *Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. 3. The Movement; injectable drugs; Canadian groups; and more. $2.50 0 *Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. 4. Psychiatry and the aged; drug deaths; legal chart; and more. $2.50 o *Phoenix Rising, vol. 3, no. 1. tenth International Conference; class bias in psychiatry; paraldehyde; and more. $2.50 0 o *Phoenix Rising, vol. 3, no. 2. The housingcrisis;TardiveDyskinesia;Titicut Follies;and more. $2.50 0 o Phoenix Publications: 0 o 1. HospitalDon't Spyhole(includedMe,inbyvol.David2, no.Reville.1 of PboenixA vivid andRIsing).revealing personal account of six months in Kingston Psychiatric $1.25 0 o 2. Kids and Psychiatry. a report on children's psychiatric services in Canada (included in vol. 2, no. 2 of Phoenix RIsing). $1.25 0 o 4.3. TheLegalMovement.Chart. A p~ovinceA historybyandprovincefact sheetbreakdownof the Psychiatricof the rightsInmatesof psychiatricLiberationinmates.Movement. $1.75$1.25 0 o Distributed by ON OUR OWN: 0 O On"RequiredOur Own:readingPatient·ControUedfor 'mental health'Alternativesprofessionalsto the ...mentalwhoHealthstill believeSystem,thatby'mentalJudi Chamberlinpatients' are(McGraw-Hilltoo 'sick', Ryerson). 0 o helpless and incompetent to run their own lives." $7.00 0 O Thefirst Historyperson accounts,of Shock graphicsTreatment,andeditedother bymaterialLeonardcoveringRoy Frank.40yearsA compellingof shock treatment.and frightening collection of studies, $8.00 0 o ·We regret that the cost of reprints has made it necessary to raise the price of back issues to $2.50. 0 o 0

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