There’s an article titled Restraint – 10 ways it harms psychiatric patients on Sectioned’s blog today. It describes Sectioned’s own experience in this area. Sectioned lists ten ways he/she was harmed by this practice, and the article is well worth reading.
AN INTERESTING STORY Yesterday I came across the following on Twitter from Mental Health @Sectioned_. "I just met someone who told me their remarkable story about falling down the rabbit hole into psychiatric sectioning and forced medication. I listened with fascination to their intricate story in all its twists and turns, looping backwards and forwards with incredible details. The longer we spoke the more was revealed, the crazier and more believable it sounded. I was listening, probing for clarification, trying to grasp what happened and why. First the overview, then the highlights, then more details, expanding out, backing round, drawing me in. There were many parallels in our stories, and many contrasts. It reminded me why I don't really talk in detail about what happened to me: because, if you've not experienced it, it sounds unbelievable. Unless you've experienced the scorching reality of forced drugging, seclusion, assault by nurses and patients, it sounds like a mad fantasy. It's too far outside most people's realities for them to contemplate it being true, and so quietly assume you're deluded. So it smooths life's path to make light, to skirt over the details, to change the topic. And sometimes, sometimes, when I meet someone who's been through something similar, I listen to their story and realize I'm not the only one." ...
A NEW PARADIGM I’ve recently read an interesting article by Jacqui Dillon, Lucy Johnstone and Eleanor Longden. It’s titled Trauma, Dissociation, Attachment &Neuroscience: A new paradigm for understanding severe mental distress. The article was published in the Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy (Vol 12, No 3, September 2012) Here are some quotes: "A new and profoundly important paradigm for understanding overwhelming emotional pain has emerged over the last few years, with the potential to change the way we conceptualise human suffering across the whole spectrum of mental health difficulties. It is a strongly evidence-based synthesis of findings from trauma studies, attachment theory and neuroscience, which offers new hope for recovery. It also presents a powerful challenge to biomedical model psychiatry in that it is based on scientific evidence that substantiates and attests to what many individuals with first-hand experience of mental health problems have always known –– that the bad things that happen to you can drive you mad." ...
I’ve recently come across an October 2012 article by Ted Chabasinski. It’s on Mad in America and it’s called: Our Task Is to Take Away the Power of Psychiatry. Ted tells us that he was was subjected to electric shock “treatment” when he was six years old. You can see a brief bio here. Here are some quotes from the October 2012 article: "Those who benefit from the way things are now won’t give up their money and power without a huge fight." ...
I have just read The Dark Threads, by Jean Davison (Accent Press Ltd, 2009) It’s autobiographical, and describes with great detail and insight how a young woman of 18 years, whose only problem was acute shyness coupled with a yearning for some meaning in life, made the mistake of visiting a psychiatrist. Jean describes how she was bullied into accepting psychiatric “treatment." She was drugged into a zombie-like stupor and given electric shock “treatment.” She describes graphically the disempowering and humiliating aspects of “treatment,” and the endless patronizing condescension. ...
DELICATE THINGS REQUIRE DELICATE HANDLING When I was a teenager, one of my hobbies was making small transistor radios. It sounds complicated, but is well within the reach of an average 15-year-old. You get some magazine articles, learn how to read a circuit, and learn how to use a soldering iron. A transistor is a small device – about half the size of a pencil eraser – with three wires coming out of it. In building a radio receiver, the transistors have to be soldered to other devices which are in turn soldered to other devices, etc… The soldering iron is plugged into a wall outlet, but no mains electricity reaches the tip of the iron. However, tiny eddy currents can circulate in the tip, and although they are only of the order of milliamps, they can burn a transistor in seconds. What you have to do is unplug the iron from the socket, make the joint with the tip’s retained heat, and then replug the iron to have it ready for the next joint. The point being that delicate things require delicate handling, and that electricity can be very destructive. ...