Thursday, June 28, 2007
Brockville Psychiatric Hospital
Above is a picture of Brockville Psychiatric Hospital in Brockville, Ontario.
I was a patient a the Royal Ottawa Hospital (ROH). I was on the Whitney 4 ward. I tried to hang myself in my room and it was decided by my psychiatrist to send me to Brockville Psychiatric Hospital (BPH) .
In March of 1973 I was transferred from the ROH to BPH by an ambulance. It took one hour as the BPH is 60 miles away. I sat in the back of the ambulance, anxious not knowing what was in store for me. I was feeling very suicidal and depressed. I had been abused at home for l7 years by mother. She beat me, choked me, strangled me, threw me down stairs, called me all sorts of names and she abused my brother Chris and she abused our animals. My mom was sadistic
and I still am recovering from the abuse. I am 52 years old and I have been in therapy since I was 17 years old. Her brother my uncle Lyman molested me when I was 4 years old. My father beat my mother and he abused my brother and I emotionally and as well did physically abuse sometimes. I came from a very unstable and violent home where I did not feel safe at all.
My brother and I protected each other. My brother would pull my mother as she would be on top of me strangling me. He would try to call the police and my mother would pull the phone out of the wall and threaten to kill us if we told anyone. We were very afraid of our mother for good reason and did not tell anyone. We told a school counsellor at Chamaplain High who did little for my brother and I. Child abuse was a taboo subject and hidden in the closet in the early 1970s. No one talked about and very few people did anything about it. Today it is very much different and people do report child abuse cases and most times something is done about it.
Well the ambulance ride did not ease my mind at all but made me more anxious. I never went to Brockville, Ontario before and never knew anyone who had been a patient at the hospital.
The ambulance arrived at the hospital and a big red brick building. The hospital had big spacious grounds with large trees and many buildings, just off the main highway and near the water.
I got out of the ambulance and was escorted to the entrance of the building by the ambulance attendant.
Fighting the APA, CPA etc
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Dr. Seth Farber
Dr. Farber's Website
http://www.sethhfarber.com
Network Against Coercive Psychiatry
http://www.sethhfarber.com
Dr. Seth Farber's quote:
"The mental health establishment has snowed the American people: it launches the most unimaginable brutal psychological and physical assault on human beings in distress, calls this 'medical treatment', and then blames the outcome on 'mental illness'.
One Who Flew Over Cuckoos Nest - Ken Kesey, author
a picture of Ken Kesey, author of "One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
http://www.key-z.com/
Ken Kesey's quote:
Electro Shock Therapy - a device that might be said to do the work of the sleeping pill, the electric chair, and the torture rack. It's a clever little procedure, simple. quick, nearly painless it happens so fast, but no one wants another one. Ever.
-Ken Kesey, (1962)
Dr. Paula Joan Caplan, psychologist and author
Above is a picture of Dr. Paula Joan Caplan, an American psychologist and author
Above is an image of Dr. Paula J. Caplan's bookOn the back cover of this book it states:
the rest of us a fighting chance to avoid becoming victims of the mental-health establishment." -
-The Cleveland Plain Dealer
the "bible of the mental-health professions," the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders), Paula Caplan offers an insider's look at the process by which decisions
about abnormality are made. Cutting through the professional psycho-babble, Caplan clearly
assesses the astonishing extent to which scientific methods and evidence are disregarded
as the handbook is developed. A must read for consumers and practitioners of mental health
services. They Say You're Crazy exposes and challenges the mental-health establishment
which through its creation of potentially damaging interpretations and labels, has the power
to alter our lives in devastating ways.
http://paulajcaplan.net/
Wendy Funk, ECT survivor and author
Above is a picture of Wendy Funk's book entitled "What DiffErenCe Does IT Make (The Journey of A Soul Survivor)Reviews of Wendy Funk's book:
Barbara C. Cody B.Sc., R.N. Electroshock Survivor, Activist, Writer, Speaker
"What Difference Does It Make?" is a courageous young woman's experience of psychiatric hospitalization and tragic life altering, memory robbing effects of Electroshock "therapy". A true story of survival. Recommended reading for ECT survivors, their families, activists, and anyone considering ECT as a treatment option for themselves or a loved one. If you want to know what ECT really does, read this book."
Bonnie Burstow, Psychotherapist, anti-psychiatry activisit, co-editor of Shrink Resistant: The Struggle Against Psychiatry in Canada.
"Wendy reveals as only a survivor can the travesty, the dehumanization, the affront to self, and the theft of self perpetrated by the psychiatric system. A gripping and terrifying account that serves as a warning to anyone who thinks that they are beyond reach."
Wendy Funk grew up with the notion that if she worked hard and lived a clean life, her goals
experienced first hand. It's the story of having all freedoms and rights once taken for granted - suddenly stripped away; of learning to live without the memories of a lifetime; of knowing
the ultimate in betrayals. It's the story of how survival after psychiatry is possible.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wendy Funk in a newspaper article
Shock Treatment!
A Survivor Battles to Stop Controversial Therapy
By JOY HICKSON Lethbridge Herald Seven years ago, Wendy Funk-Robitaille was a different person.
At 32, she was living in Medicine Hat, happily married with two children, had a job as a social worker, was working on her master's degree and planning to go to law school.
But after being diagnosed and treated, including electric shock, for depression, Funk-Robitaille was left a shell of her former self, unable to read, drive or even remember how to find her bathroom.
She had lost almost a lifetime of memories, including knowing her husband and sons.
In the years since, she has been able to recover to a degree, thanks largely to the support of her husband, Dan Robitaille.
But she has discovered she is not the only one who feels scarred by psychiatric treatment and he's started a support group called Crusaders Against Psychiatry.
"I would like to see ECT (electroconvulsive therapy or shock treatment) banned and some kind of tighter control on psychiatrists," she says. "I want other people to realize this could happen to you."
Members of her group, CAP, believe psychiatry "is a brainwashing technique which damages the brain and destroys memory," she says.
"I think mental health care is a scam. Professionals are in it to make money."
Robitaille's treatment began after a visit to a doctor whom she'd never seen before to treat a sore throat.
She had been under considerable stress because she had recently been raped at work. That, a heavy workload and the pain of a sore throat caused her to burst into tears in the doctor's office. The doctor determined she might be suffering from depression and prescribed Prozac.
Side effects of the antidepressant drug, affecting her sleep and eating patterns, made her feel worse and Funk-Robitaille's treatment snowballed to include more medication and eventually ECT.
After 43 shock treatments in a 14 month period and dozens of pills, she knew she needed a change.
"I decided this was not the way to live," Funk-Robitaille says. "I flushed the pills down the toilet."
Then she went to a psychiatrist in Calgary who determined she no longer needed treatment, but said her amnesia was probably permanent.
Now living in Lethbridge, Funk-Robitaille has re-learned most life skills and had another baby three years ago.
But life is still a struggle, she says
Many memories have been lost and some of her abilities, such as with math, are impaired.
"I can't remember my older sons' (ages 15 and 17) births or our wedding," she says. "I have a record in my picture albums and diaries, but it' not the same."
She thought her experience was an isolated incident until she saw a television talk show about the same thing happening to other people.
"I couldn't believe it," she says thought I was the only one. Then I knew there had to be other people this area who'd had bad experience and want to survive."
She has gone on local talk show herself, and is planning to publish, book on her experience.
"(Psychiatric treatment) took away my career, my past is gone and my future is shaky," she says.
"I just want to raise my family a give them the best life possible. And I want to tell others to be careful of people who they think can help the cope with life. Find alternatives to taking chemicals."
And she wants people who have had damaging treatment to know "there is hope for survival after psychiatry." For more information about CAP people may call Funk Robitaille at 381-6582------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wendy Funk can be reached by email: wendyf@klondiker.com or by telephone at
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Famous people who suffered from depression
Famous People Who Have Suffered from Depression
These famous authors, scientists, leaders, artists, and celebrities all have been reported as having suffered from depression.
| Alvin Ailey, dancer and choreographer Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, astronaut Louie Anderson, comedian, actor Ann-Margaret, actress Diane Arbus, photographer Lionel Aldridge, football player Alexander the Great, king Hans Christian Anderson, author Tai Babilonia, figureskater Oksana Baiul, figureskater Honore de Balzac, writer Samuel Barber, classical composer Roseanne Barr, actress Drew Barrymore, actress James M. Barrie, writer Rona Barrett, columnist Charles Baudelaire, poet Shelley Beattie, athlete and artist Ned Beatty, actor Samuel Becket, writer Ludwig von Beethoven, composer Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel Brendan Behan, poet Irving Berlin, composer Hector Berlioz, composer John Berryman, poet William Blake, poet Charles Bluhdorn, executive, Gulf Western Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor Kjell Magne Bondevik, Prime Minister of Norway Robert Boorstin, writer, special assistant to Pres. Clinton, State Department Clara Bow, actor Tommy Boyce, musician, composer Cheyenne Brando, actor Marlon Brando, actor Richard Brautigan, writer Van Wyck Brooks, writer John Brown, abolitionist Ruth Brown, singer Anton Bruckner, composer Art Buchwald, political humorist John Bunyan, writer Robert Burns, poet Robert Burton, writer Tim Burton, artist, movie director Willie Burton, basketball player Barbara Bush, former First Lady Lord Byron, poet Helen Caldicott, activist, writer Donald Cammell, movie director, screenwriter Robert Campeau, Canadian businessman Albert Camus, writer Truman Capote, writer Drew Carey, actor and comedian Jim Carrey, actor and comedian Dick Cavett, broadcaster C.E. Chaffin, writer, poet Ray Charles, R&B performer Thomas Chatterton, poet Paddy Chayefsky, writer, movie director Lawton Chiles, former governor of Florida Frederic Chopin, composer Winston Churchill, British prime minister Sandra Cisneros, writer Eric Clapton, blues-rock musician Dick Clark, entertainer (American Bandstand) John Cleese, actor Rosemary Clooney, singer Kurt Cobain, rock star Tyrus Cobb, athlete Leonard Cohen, poet and singer Natalie Cole, singer Garnet Coleman, Texas legislator Samuel Coleridge, poet Judy Collins, musician, writer Shawn Colvin, musician Jeff Conaway, actor Joseph Conrad, author Pat Conroy, writer Calvin Coolidge, U.S. president Francis Ford Coppola, director Billy Corgan, musician Patricia Cornwell, writer Noel Coward, composer William Cowper, poet Hart Crane, writer Oliver Cromwell, dictator Kathy Cronkite, writer Dennis Crosby, actor Sheryl Crow, singer and rock musician Richard Dadd, artist John Daly, athlete (golf) Rodney Dangerfield, comedian Charles Darwin, explorer and scientist David, Israeli King Ray Davies, musician Thomas De Quincey, poet Lenny Dee, musician Sandra Dee, actor Ellen DeGeneres, comedienne, actor John Denver, singer and actor Muffin Spencer Devlin, pro golfer Diana, Princess of Wales Paolo DiCanio, athlete (soccer) Charles Dickens, writer Emily Dickenson, poet Isak Dinesen, author Scott Donie, Olympic athlete (diving) Terence Donovan, photographer Michael Dorris, writer Theodore Dostoevski, writer Eric Douglas, actor Tony Dow, actor, producer, director Richard Dreyfuss, actor Jack Dreyfus, manager, Dreyfus Fund Kitty Dukakis, former First Lady, Mass. Patty Duke, actress Thomas Eagleton, lawyer, U.S. Senator Thomas Eakins, artist Thomas Edison, inventor Edward Elgar, composer T.S. Eliot, poet Queen Elizabeth I of England Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer Robert Evans, film producer James Farmer, civil rights leader Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television William Faulkner, writer Jules Feiffer, cartoonist and satirist Tim Finn, musician, composer Carrie Fisher, actress and writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, writer Larry Flynt, magazine publisher Betty Ford, former First Lady Harrison Ford, actor James Forrestal, cabinet member Steven Foster, writer Michel Foucault, writer, philosopher George Fox, Quaker Connie Francis, entertainer Andre Franquin, 1924-1997, cartoonist Albert French, writer Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist Brenda Fricker, actress Peter Gabriel, rock star John Kenneth Galbraith, economist Judy Garland, singer, actor James Garner, actor Paul Gascoigne, athlete (soccer) Paul Gauguin, artist | Harold Geneen, executive, ITT Industries King George III of England Stan Getz, musician Kaye Gibbons, writer Kendall Gill, athlete (basketball) Kit Gingrich, Newt's mother Johann Goethe, writer Oliver Goldsmith, poet Dwight Gooden, baseball player George Gordon, poet Tipper Gore, wife of U.S. Vice-President Arshille Gorky, artist Francisco de Goya, painter Phil Graham, owner, Washington Post Graham Green, writer Shecky Greene, comedian Philip Guston, artist Alexander Hamilton, politician Linda Hamilton, actress Georg Frederich Handel, composer Pete Harnisch, baseball player Mariette Hartley, actress Juliana Hatfield, musician Hampton Hawes, musician Stephen Hawking, physicist Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer Lillian Hellman, writer Ernest Hemingway, writer Margaux Hemingway, actor Audrey Hepburn, actress King Herod, Biblical figure Kristin Hersh, musician Hermann Hesse, writer Abby Hoffman, writer and activist Sir Anthony Hopkins, actor Gerard M. Hopkins, poet Edward Hopper, artist Howard Hughes, industrialist Victor Hugo, author Helen Hutchison, broadcaster Heinrich Ibsen, playwright Jack Irons, musician Eugene Izzi, writer Andrew Jackson, U.S. President Janet Jackson, singer Henry James, writer William James, writer Kay Redfield Jamison, psychologist, writer Randall Jarrell, poet Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President Jim Jenson, CBS News Jeremiah, Biblical figure Joan of Arc, French leader Job, Biblical figure Billy Joel, musician, composer Elton John, musician, composer Daniel Johns, musician Samuel Johnson, poet Daniel Johnston, musician Ashley Judd, actor Franz Kafka, writer Karen Kain, prima ballerina Danny Kaye, entertainer John Keats, writer Margot Kidder, actress Larry King, talkshow host Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, artist Gelsey Kirkland, dancer Heinrich von Kleist, poet Percy Knauth, journalist Joey Kramer, musician William Kurelek, artist Pat LaFontaine, hockey player Charles Lamb, poet Jessica Lange, actor Peter Nolan Lawrence, English writer Edward Lear, artist Frances Lear, publisher Robert E. Lee, U.S. general Vivian Leigh, actress John Lennon, musician Rika Lesser, writer, translator Primo Levi, chemist, writer Bill Lichtenstein, producer (TV & radio) Allie Light, director Abraham Lincoln, U.S. President Vachel Lindsey, writer Karl Paul Link, chemist Ross Lockridge, Jr., writer Joshua Logan, producer Jack London, writer Rick London, cartoonist Greg Louganis, U.S. diver and Olympic gold medallist Courtney Love, musician James Russell Lowell, poet Robert Lowell, poet Malcolm Lowry, writer J. Anthony Lukas, writer Salvador Luria, bacterial geneticist Martin Luther, Protestant leader Gustav Mahler, composer Duke of Marlborough, soldier Elizabeth Manley, Canadian figureskater Camryn Mannheim, actor Martha Manning, psychologist, writer Imelda Marcos, Philippine dictator's wife Jay Marvin, radio personality, writer Vladimir Mayakovsky, poet Gary McDonald, Australian actor Kevin McDonald, comedian, actor Robert McFarlane, former United States National Security Adviser Rod McKuen, writer, poet, producer Sarah McLachlan, singer, Lilith Fair creator Kristy McNichol, actress Peter McWilliams, writer Herman Melville, writer Burgess Meredith, actor Robert Merrill, musician, lyricist Paul Merton, British comedian Michelangelo, Italian artist Dimitri Mihalas, scientist Kate Millett, writer, artist Spike Milligan, comic actor, writer Carmen Miranda, actor Claude Monet, artist Thelonious Monk, musician Marilyn Monroe, actor Alanis Morissette, Canadian singer S.P. Morrissey, musician John Mulheren, financier (U.S.) Edvard Munch, artist Robert Munsch, writer Les Murray, Australian poet Conrad Meyer, writer Michelangelo, artist John Stuart Mill, writer Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet Kate Millet, writer and feminist Spike Milligan, humourist John Milton, poet Charles Mingus, compser Carmen Miranda, singer Marilyn Monroe, actress Mavor Moore, producer J.P. Morgan, industrialist Modest Mussogorgsky, composer Benito Mussolini, Italian dictator Ilie Natase, tennis player, politician Ralph Nader, U.S. consumer rights advocate Nebuchadnezzar, Biblical figure | Sir Isaac Newton, physicist Florence Nightingale, British nurse Vaslav Nijinksy, ballet dancer Richard Nixon, U.S. president Deborah Norville, television journalist Sinead O'Connor, musician Georgia O'Keeffe, painter Eugene O'Neill, playwright John Ogden, pianist Laurence Olivier, actor Margo Orum, writer Ozzie Osborne, rock star Donny Osmond, musician Marie Osmond, musician Wilfred Owen, poet, soldier Nicola Pagett, actor Susan Panico, business executive Charles Parker, compoer Dorothy Parker, writer, poet, wit Dolly Parton, singer Boris Pasternak, writer John Pastorius, composer George Patton, soldier Pierre Peladeau, publisher Charley Pell, former coach, Univ. of Florida Teddy Pendergrass, musician Walker Percy, writer Murray Pezim, Canadian businessman Jimmie Piersall, baseball player William Pitt, Prime Minister Sylvia Plath, poet Edgar Allen Poe, writer Jackson Pollock, artist Cole Porter, composer Ezra Pound, poet Alma Powell, wife of Gen. Colin Powell Susan Powter, motivational speaker Charlie Pride, country singer Sergey Rachmaninoff, composer Bonnie Raitt, singer Mac Rebennack (Dr. John), musician Lou Reed, singer Jeannie C. Riley, singer Rainer Maria Rilke, poet Joan Rivers, comedian Lynn Rivers, U.S. Congresswoman Alys Robi, Canadian vocalist Norman Rockwell, artist Theodore Roethke, poet George Romney, artist Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. President Axl Rose, rock star Roseanne, actor, writer, comedienne Amelia Rosselli, 1930-1996, poet Dante Rossetti, poet and painter Gioacchimo Rossini, composer Martin Rossiter, musician Philip Roth, writer Mark Rothko, artist Gabrielle Roy, author John Ruskin, writer Winona Ryder, actor Yves Saint Laurent, fashion designer May Sarton, poet, novelist Francesco Scavullo, artist, photographer Lori Schiller, writer, educator Charles Schulz, cartoonist (Peanuts) Robert Schumann, German composer Delmore Schwartz, poet Ronnie Scott, musician Alexander Scriabin, composer Jean Seberg, actress Monica Seles, athlete (tennis) Anne Sexton, poet Linda Sexton, writer Mary Shelley, author Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet William Tecumseh Sherman, general Frances Sherwood, writer Dmitri Shostakovich, musician Scott Simmie, writer, journalist Paul Simon, composer, musician Lauren Slater, writer Christopher Smart, poet Jose Solano, actor Phil Specter, promoter and producer Alonzo Spellman, athlete (football) Muffin Spencer-Devlin, pro golfer Vivian Stanshall, musician, writer, artist Rod Steiger, actor George Stephanopoulos, political advisor Robert Louis Stevenson, writer Sting, singer and musician Teresa Stratas, opera singer Darryl Strawberry, baseball player William Styron, writer Emmanuel Swedenbourg, religious leader James Taylor, singer and musician Kate Taylor, musician Lili Taylor, actor Livingston Taylor, musician P.I. Tchaikovsky, composer Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet Tracy Thompson, writer, reporter Dylan Thomas, poet Edward Thomas, poet Leo Tolstoy, writer Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, artist Spencer Tracy, actor Ted Turner, founder, CNN Network Mark Twain, author Hunter Tylo, actress Mike Tyson, prizefighter Jean-Claude Van Damme, actor Vincent Van Gogh, artist Vivian Vance, actor Victoria, British Queen Mark Vonnegut, doctor, writer Kurt Vonnegut, writer Sol Wachtler, judge Tom Waits, musician Mike Wallace, broadcaster Michael Warren, executive, Canada Post George Washington, U.S. President Damon Wayans, comedian, actor, writer, director, producer Walt Whitman, poet Dar Williams, musician Robin Williams, actor Tennessee Williams, playwright Brian Wilson, rockstar (Beach Boys) William Carlos Williams, physician, writer Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous Jonathan Winters, comedian Hugo Wolf, composer Thomas Wolfe, writer Mary Wollstoncraft, writer Ed Wood, movie director Natalie Wood, actor Virginia Woolf, writer Luther Wright, basketball player Elizabeth Wurtzel, writer Tammy Wynette, singer Bert Yancey, pro golfer Boris Yeltsin, former President, Russia Faron Young, musician Robert Young, actor William Zeckendorf, industrialist Emile Zola, writer Stefan Zweig, poet |
Reporting a doctor who abused you
http://www.cpso.on.ca
How to make a complaint
http://www.cpso.on.ca/Info_Public/factcomp.htm
How to make a complaint about sexual abuse
http://www.cpso.on.ca/Info_Public/factscompl.htm
Canadian Regulatory Bodies/The College of Physicians and Surgeons for all provinces in Canada etc.
http://www.cpso.on.ca/Links/links.htm
The College of Psychologists in Ontario
Contact the College
Website: www.cpo.on.ca
General Email: cpo@cpo.on.ca
Registration: registration@cpo.on.ca
Examination: exams@cpo.on.ca
Investigations and Hearings: invhear@cpo.on.ca
Professional Practice Questions: practicequeries@cpo.on.ca
Telephone: (416) 961-8817
Toll Free: (800) 489-8388 (Ontario Only)
Fax: (416) 961-2635
Address: The College of Psychologists of Ontario
110 Eglinton Avenue West
Suite 500
Toronto, Ontario M4R 1A3
Canada
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lobby governments to ban ECT/Political Action
Guidelines:
1. Email or mail a letter to your representative/senator/MP/MPP today:
Hello everyone, I wanted to tell you how important it is to let your legislators know you want electroshock banned, to end now. You may think your one email or one letter does not count BUT it does count. The government is aware of public opinion and your opinion counts.
Please take a few moments of your time to let the legislators know how you feel about electroshock. It will take legislation changes to the mental health laws to ban electroshock. Here is a sample letter below. Thank you for caring to make a difference in the world today!
SAMPLE LETTER:
Dear Sir/Madam
I am writing/emailing you today because I want electroconvulsive therapy also known as electroshock or ECT to be banned from the mental health legislation.
There have been numerous studies and reports done that prove that electroshock
therapy causes brain damage. See the website of Dr. Peter R. Breggin, an American psychiatrist in the USA who has for many years written about the hazards of electroshock. His URL is: http://www.breggin.com.
(Add your own comments about why you want ect banned)
2. Organize a peaceful protest against the use of electroshock at your nearest psychiatric hospital.
Call your local City Hall administration for a permit to have permission to have the protest. The permit is free. Apply for this permit a few weeks ahead of your event. This is good to have in case the police show up, keep a copy of the permit on you and ready your permit carefully. You cannot enter the facility you are protesting at or go onto the grounds. You can go on the sidewalk for the protest.
Get some supporters and friends and family together to show up for the protest. Post your press release of the event at libraries, online, at stores, at churches etc. a few weeks before the event and in your neighbourhood and where the event is taking place.
Make a press release and send it to the local media a week ahead. The media usually show up promptly as soon as the protest starts, so please be on time.
SAMPLE PRESS RELEASE:
P R E S S R E L E A S E
June 19, 2006
ECT PROTEST AT THE ABC HOSPITAL ON JUNE 26th, 2007
TIME: 10 a.m. to 12 noon
PLACE: ABC Hospital, 3333 Juniper Street, City, State
Contacts: Sue Z. Home (555-555-555) cell phone (777-777-7777)
The group called End ECT is holding a peaceful protest on June 26, 2007 to protest the use of electroshock at this hospital. Mr. L. was a patient there and he says he has suffered from permanent memory loss.
Mr. L. wants ECT to be stopped at this hospital. (put the main points of your protest here,
and keep it concise - 3 or four paragraphs.
Electroshock harms people.
(see the website www.breggin.com for more info on ECT)
(Keep the press release to one page only) Some local stationary stores have cheap prices for
photocopying, maybe someone you know has a photocopier and can make you some free copies
Ask around and you will find people willing to help you out.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some local stationary stores have cheap prices for photocopying, maybe someone you know has a photocopier and can make you some free copies. Ask around and you will find people willing to help you out.
You can use props for the protest which the media like, make protest signs on bristol board
too. Remember, most of all to have fun. Sings songs, make up slogans and chants for your protest, get someone with a guitar or a singer. Be creative.
Get the names of the media who you speak too at the event as you may want to contact them. Keep a list of the people who participated in the peaceful protest as you may want them to come back to another protest. Have water supplied if you can especially on a hot day. Take pics of your protest or video.
You may want to put up a website or a blog. Lots are free on the web like geocities.com
and www.blogger.com
Keep a copy of your press clippings. Good Luck to you all who are organizing. It is fun and it is constructive.
3. Call your local radio shows and tv stations and try to get them to interview you.
4. Write to the editors of newspapers and magazines and write about wanting the governments to end electroshock or tell them about your experiences with ECT or of a friend of family member.
5. Organize your own group of psychiatric survivors if there is not one in your area. You can
sometimes use a church hall for free. Ask other groups you know of how they got their
meeting place.
6. Write your own book about your experiences. If you don't have the money to publish your book, you can always type it online at places like www.blogger.com for free for everyone to have access to. Publishing a book can be expensive or self publish if you can or get someone to hlep you.
7. Speak out at library or event about your experiences with psychiatry.
8. Write poetry or a play.
9. Organize an event in your city. Some local newspapers have a section in the newspaper where you can post your event for free. Send in your event announcement a few weeks ahead.
10. Write a song
11. Have a MAD Pride Day on July 14th Bastille Day
If you think of any more ideas for social action, please let me know and I will post them here.
Email mail me: 2005.sueclark@gmail.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------g
START YOUR POLITICAL ACTION WITH THESE GOVERNMENT WEBSITES:
IN ONTARIO, CANADA
The Ontario Mental Health Act
IN CANADA, WEBSITES OF ALL THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS
http://www.canada.gc.ca/othergov/prov_e.html
How to contact your Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP)
http://www.ontla.on.ca/web
How to contact your Federal Member of Parliament (MP) It is free to send a letter to your MP in Ottawa. No postage stamp needed
http://canada.gc.ca/directories
IN THE UNITED STATES, GOVERNMENT WEBSITES
How to contact your representative's office/United States House of Representatives
http://www.house.gov/house
How to contact your US Senator
http://www.senate.gov/general
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, June 25, 2007
Steven's movies exposing ECT and DSM-IV
Here are the 3 movies. These are good little movies, don't miss them! Steven is very creative - Sue, his wife
Here are the movie titles and their URLs:
WHAT IS ECT?
The URL is:
www.digitalfilms.com/play.php
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAMOUS PEOPLE & ECT
The URL is:
www.digitalfilms.com/play.php
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXPOSING THE DMS-IV
www.digitalfilms.com/play.php
These are the websites that were posted in these movies:
http://psychiatrybuster.blogspot.com
http://www.breggin.com
http://www.ect.org
http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca
http://capacanada.wordpress.com
http://banshock.org
http://endofshock.com
http://www.mindfreedom.org
http://www.wildestcolts.com
No Proof Mental Illness Exists
The people in this video discusses the fraud of diagnosing people with psychiatric diagnoses.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=V96aYXnRqKw
No proof mental illness rooted in biology
By Dr. KEITH HOELLER
GUEST COLUMNIST
What is "the mental health movement?" Its proponents claim that millions of Americans are afflicted with a mental illness, which is a disease "just like any other" and that the mentally ill suffer from a chemical imbalance in the brain that is corrected by psychiatric drugs.
Mental illness is said to be the cause of many of our society's social ills, such as suicide, murder, divorce, child abuse, sex offenses, depression and various addictions. If only mental illness could be cured, mental health supporters say, all of these ills could be prevented.
Because the mentally ill often are unaware of their disease, treatment must be forced on the mentally ill. All 50 states have laws that allow involuntary treatment if professionals deem they are a danger to self and others.
Psychiatrists, we are told, can now accurately diagnose mental illness and have safe and effective treatments. Psychiatry is considered a valid medical specialty, like cardiology, and the claims of the movement are based on scientific research.
The largest lay group is the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). The media routinely refer to NAMI as advocates for the mentally ill, although its membership consists almost entirely of family members and not the mentally ill themselves. NAMI ascribes to the "biological basis of mental illness," and endorses forced treatment of the mentally ill.
The movement's major source of funding is the highly profitable pharmaceutical industry, which funds the drug research; which funds psychiatric journals, and even the American Psychiatric Association itself; which funds advertising to doctors and the public; and even funds lay groups such as NAMI (at least $11 million) and Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (at least $1 million).
Yet many professionals claim that the mental health movement is not a legitimate medical or scientific endeavor, let alone a civil rights movement, but a political ideology of intolerance and inhumanity.
Numerous psychiatrists and psychologists have examined the psychiatric research literature and found it to range from smoke and mirrors to quackery.
Psychiatrists have yet to conclusively prove that a single mental illness has a biological or physical cause, or a genetic origin. Psychiatry has yet to develop a single physical test that can determine that an individual actually has a particular mental illness. Indeed, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders uses behavior, not physical symptoms, to diagnose mental illness, and it lacks both scientific reliability and validity.
On Aug. 16, eight members of MindFreedom (www.mindfreedom.org), an umbrella organization of mental patients who call themselves "psychiatric survivors," began a Fast for Freedom "to press for human rights and choice in psychiatry" and to "demand that the mental health industry produce even one study proving the common industry claim that 'mental illness is biologically-based.' "
Dr. James Scully of the American Psychiatric Association responded to the hunger strikers by claiming the evidence was so vast one need only look at "Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General" (1999) or a recent psychiatry textbook.
An expert panel for the strikers, made up of members (like myself) of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (http://www.icspp.org), quickly responded by pointing out that neither of these works contains any such conclusive proof. Actually, the surgeon general's report on mental health states that "the precise causes (etiology) of mental disorders are not known" and "there is no definitive lesion, laboratory test, or abnormality in brain tissue that can identify (a mental) illness." The Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry (1999) states: " ... Validation of the diagnostic categories as specific entities has not been established." In its reply to the fasters, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill did not cite any scientific evidence at all.
In 1784, a similar debate raged in Paris about the scientific validity of the latest psychiatric nostrum (hypnotism) and its inventor, Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer, who claimed to have discovered a physical mechanism he called animal magnetism. The Academy of Sciences formed a panel, including American scientist Benjamin Franklin and French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, to assess the movement sweeping the city, and concluded that Mesmer's "cures" had no scientific basis. They were due entirely to the power of suggestion, now called the placebo effect. The Royal Society of Medicine issued a report with similar findings on Aug. 16, 1784.
Let us hope the Fast for Freedom has a positive outcome for all involved. If not, let us insist that the American Medical Association (or similar body) form a panel of objective, non-psychiatric scientists, without any ties to drug companies, to examine whether psychiatry should continue as a medical specialty or if it should join the historical ranks of alchemy, astrology and phrenology as a pseudoscience.
Dr. Keith Hoeller is editor of the "Review of Existential Psychology & Psychiatry" in Seattle.
For the latest news release plus lots of updates, published media articles, commentary, fact sheets, latest actions on electroshock, you can take to support the fast, and how to become a member of MindFreedom, check:
http://www.MindFreedom.org
For daily Fast photos, a lively public message board with hunger striker discussion, and more see this page:
Photos of a delegation of hunger strikers meeting with the President of the American Psychiatric Association:
Some of the latest published media articles on the fast:
For a sample of the debate going on about the "biological basis of mental illness" see: http://psychrights.org/
25 ReasonsWhy Psychiatry Must Be Abolished
Above is a picture of Don Weitz of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Don is an antipsychiatry activist and author.25 GOOD REASONS WHY PSYCHIATRY MUST BE ABOLISHED
by Don Weitz2. Because psychiatrists frequently violate the Hippocratic Oath which orders all physicians "First Do No Harm."
3. Because psychiatrists patronize and disempower people, especially their patients.
4. Because psychiatry is not a medical science.
5. Because psychiatry is quackery, a pseudo-science which lacks independent diagnostic tests, testable hypotheses, and cures for "schizophrenia" and all other types of alleged "mental illness" or "mental disorder".
6. Because psychiatrists can not accurately and reliably predict dangerousness, violence, or any other type of human behaviour, yet make such claims as "expert witnesses", and with the media promote the "dangerous mental patient" myth/stereotype.
7. Because psychiatrists have caused a worldwide epidemic of brain damage by promoting and prescribing brain-disabling treatments such as the neuroleptics, antidepressants, electroconvulsive brainwashing (electroshock), and psychosurgery (lobotomy).
8. Because psychiatrists manufacture hundreds of "mental disorders" classified in its bible called "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (a modern witch-hunting manual); such "mental disorders" and "symptoms" are in fact negative, class-and-culturally-biased moral judgments for dissident ways of coping with personal problems and alternative ways of perceiving, interpreting or being in the world.
9. Because psychiatrists, blinded by their medical model bias, fraudulently pathologize and label people's serious life or existential crises as "symptoms" of "mental illness" or "mental disorder" such as "schizophrenia","bipolar affective disorder", and "personality disorder".
10. Because psychiatrists compound this fraud by falsely claiming, without scientific proof, that these "mental disorders" are caused by a "biochemical imbalance" in the brain, genetic factors or "genetic predispositions", despite the fact that there are no genetic factors in "mental illness".
11. Because psychiatrists frequently misinform their patients, families and the public by claiming that brain-disabling procedures such as the neurotoxins (e.g.,"antipsychotic medication" and "antidepressasnts"), electroconvulsive brainwashing (electroconvulsive therapy/"ECT"), psychosurgery (lobotomy) and other behaviour modification-mind control procedures are "safe, effective and lifesaving". The exact opposite is tragically true.
12. Because psychiatrists routinely deceive or lie to patients, prisoners, their families, and the public.
13. Because psychiatrists routinely and willfully violate the medical-ethical principle of "informed consent" by misinforming or not informing their patients about the numerous toxic, disabling and frequently permanent effects of the neuroleptics such as memory loss, tardive dyskinesia, tardive psychosis, parkinsonism, dementia (all signs of brain damage), and death.
14. Because psychiatrists routinely threaten, intimidate or coerce many patients - particularly women, children, the elderly, and prisoners - into consenting to health-threatening/brain-damaging "treatment" such as the antidepressants, neuroleptics, electroconvulsive brainwashing, and hi-risk experiments.
15. Because psychiatrists frequently fail to fully inform psychiatric inmates and prisoners about existing safe and humane, non-medical alternatives in the community such as survivor-controlled crisis centres, drop-ins, self-help or advocacy groups, diet, massage, wholistic medicine, affordable supportive housing, and jobs.
16. Because psychiatrists are sexist in frequently stereotyping women in crisis as "hysterical" or "over-emotional", blaming women whenever they voice real complaints and assertively express their feelings and emotions, prescribing massive doses of tranquilizers and antidrepressants to disproportionately large numbers of women, and in sexually assaulting women in their offices and institutions.
17. Because psychiatrists, particularly white male psychiatrists, are homophobic - the American Psychiatric Association (APA) once labelled homosexuality as a "mental illness" or "mental disorder" - and have used forced electroshock on lesbians, trying to coerce them into adopting a heterosexual life style.
18. Because psychiatrists are ageist in prescribing tranquilizers, antidepressants ("medication") and electroconvulsive brainwashing for disproportionately large numbers of elderly people - a form of elder abuse.
19. Because psychiatrists are racist in disproportionately incarcerating and drugging people of African descent, aboringal people, other people of colour and labelling them "psychotic" or "schizophrenic".
20. Because psychiatrists routinely violate people's civil rights, human rights and constitutional rights such as imprisoning innocent people without court trial or public hearing ("involuntary commitment"), and subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishments or tortures such as forced drugging, electroconvulsive brainwashing, psychosurgery, solitary confinement, "chemical restraints", and 4-point or 5-point restraints.
21. Because psychiatrists masterminded the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people including disabled children, the elderly and psychiatric patients during The Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and "selected" hundreds of thousands of concentration camp prisoners for death ("T-4 euthanasia" program) - historical facts still missing in psychiatric textbooks and histories.
22. Because psychiatrists have willingly participated in and administered mind-control experiments in the United States and Canada since the early 1950s - its chief targets have been poor patients, women, dissidents and prisoners.
23. Because psychiatry, particularly institutional-biological psychiatry, is based on the 3 Fs: Fear, Fraud,and Force.
24. Because psychiatry is a form of social control or punishment - not treatment.
25. Because psychiatry, particularly institutional-biological psychiatry, is fascist - a direct threat to democracy, human rights and life.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A note from the author:This statement is a slightly revised version of the original written in Spring 1998. Feel free to add and publish your own reasons. I am a psychiatric survivor and antipsychiatry activist who has been involved in the psychiatric survivor liberation movment for 24 years.
I am also co-editor of "Shrink Resistant: The Struggle Against Psychiatry in Canada" (1988), host-producer of the antipsychiatry program "Shrinkrap" on CKLN radio (88.1 FM) in Toronto, member of People Against Coercive Treatment (P.A.C.T.), and member of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP).]
To contact Don Weitz: email: dweitz@pathcom.com or by telephone: 416-545-0796
Antipsychiatry Radio Shows
Above is a picture of David Oaks, head of the Mindfreedom International. He is a psychiatric survivor. His website is at the URL: www.mindfreedom.org A great place to join and get involved if you want you want to know or to help fight peacefully the many psychiatric abuses and human rights violations happening in psychiatry and in mental health services. David Oaks can be reached by email at: oaks@mindfreedom.org He is a real nice person and an a great leader and leader and activist. He is one of my heroes.Internet Radio -
http://www.mindfreedom.org/radioListen and call-in live every Wednesday at 4 pm EST at:
http://prncomm.net/
Hear MindFreedom's free weekly public Internet radio show every Wednesday at 4 pm EST about a nonviolent revolution in the mental health system, hosted by psychiatric rights activist David Oaks, director of MindFreedom.Archives are now available again. To hear recent shows go here:
http://oaks.progressiveradionetwork.org/
The MindFreedom News Hour is part of a diverse array of new shows on Progressive Radio Network with leadership from radio personality and health advocate Gary Null.
On each MindFreedom News Hour you'll hear hear news, resources, and an interview. Shows have covered the history of the psychiatric survivor movement, how psychiatric survivors and concerned mental health professionals are working together on human rights campaigns, and more.
Regular features include networking announcements about successful activism and alternatives.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don Weitz hosts the radio show "SHRINK RAP" in Toronto, Ontario Canada. The show is aired on radio station ( 88.1 FM) CKLN on the last Friday of the month between 6:15 p.m. and 6:35 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) This is a fantastic radio show! CKLN Website: http://www.ckln.fm
This is not an antipsychiatry show, but I was on this show recently
SOUND MIND - CKCU in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I was a guest on the show on April 25th of this year and I was interviewed by Heather Bruce. I spoke about
electroshock and psychiatry. I asked Heather if she could send me a cassette copy of the tape of the show I was on in April. Heather agreed to do a copy for me.
Three months later and I am still waiting for a copy of the cassette of the show. Spoke to Heather and sent emails to her. She said the CKCU office is under major repairs and she will send me a tape, she has not forgotten me she said....after 3 months.... You would think the Sound Mind show would have the courtesy of sending me a copy of the show in a reasonable amount of time...
My advice to you is - if you are going to be on a radio show, tape the show yourself or you may end up in the same situation and I did.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drug awareness/bad side effects Websites
Health Canadahttp://www.cbc.ca/news/adr/
http://www.drugs.com/ CANADA
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/medeff/index_e.html - CANADA
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/medeff/advers-react-neg/fs-if/ar-ei_data-donn_web_e.html
FDA
http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/18/87/
http://www.fda.gov/cder/index.html - USA
http://www.drugdigest.org/DD/Interaction/ChooseDrugs
http://www.mhra.gov.uk/home/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=287 - UK
http://www.fda.gov/medwatch/ USA
http://www.healthanddna.com/adversedrugreactions.html
http://psychdrugdangers.com/
http://www.hsa.gov.sg/ HSA_DRUGSAFETY@hsa.gov.sg USA
http://www.tga.gov.au/adr/aadrb/aadr0702.htm AUSTRALIA
http://www.tga.gov.au/adr/aadrb.htm AUSTRALIA
http://www.pbs.gov.au/html/consumer/report-reactions
http://www.drugawareness.org/home.html
http://search.medscape.com/all-search
http://www.ascp.com/advocacy/briefing/medreporting.cfm
http://search.medscape.com/drug-reference-search
CANADA
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/medeff/databasdon/index_e.html
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/medeff/advers-react-neg/fs-if/cadris-2_e.html
http://www.who.int/druginformation/
INDIA
http://www.mspcindia.org/dic/
http://www.cdsco.nic.in/
http://www.ijdvl.com/
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Anti-Psychiatry Websites
These websites below expose the harm done by psychiatry which includes psychiatric drugs and and electroshock also known as ECT, shock and electroconvulsive therapy.
If you know of any other antipsychiatry that you think I should post here, please let me know and please email me at: 2005.sueclark@gmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.antipsychiatry.org
http://stopshrinks.org
http://www.breggin.com
Dr. Breggin, an American psychiatrist and author exposes the harm done by ECT and psychiatric drugs. He has written several books which include "Toxic Psychiatry", "Talking Back to Psychiatry" He was an expert witness at lawsuits for victims of psychiatry, lawsuits on his site. He is an expert on psychiatric drugs and electroshock. See the many articles on psychiatric drugs and electroshock on this huge website which is a wealth of information.
http://www.ect.org
Juli Lawrence, who is an electroshock survivor has a huge website all about ECT which includes
ECT lawsuits
http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca and http://capacanada.wordpress.com
The websites of the "The Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA) ", Toronto, Ontario - this dynamic group headed by Dr. Bonnie Burstow and Don Weitz recently
organized a Mother's Day Event on May 13, 2007 to protest the use of electroshock on
Women, called "Stop Shocking Our Mother's and Grandmothers. This was an international event with Montreal, Quebec and Cork, Ireland Participating. Videos and pictures on this website of this ECT protest. CAPA is organizing to host a play about Hemingway in July 2007
in Toronto. There are many articles opposing psychiatry on this website. I am a member of large of CAPA.
http://endofshock.com-
Dr. John Breeding, a psychologist from Texas and his Coalition for the Abolition of
Electroshock in Texas (CAEST) . Videos about ECT/ECT protests/Shock Quotationary
http://www.wildestcolts.com - Dr. Breeding's other website where he exposes the harm done by psychiatric drugs which are given to children.
http://idiom/~drjohn/
Dr. John Friedberg, a neurologist speaks out about how ECT causes brain damage.
http://banshock.org
FDA alert on ECT/Slovenia - ECT free zone/
http://stopshrinks.org
exposing the harm done by psychiatry
http://www.mindfreedom.org
MindFreedom International is an independent nonprofit that unites 100 grassroots groups and thousands of members to peacefully take action for human rights in the mental health system.
http://outlawpsychiatry.blogspot.com
http://2ndoutlawpsychiatry.blogspot.com
http://psychrights.org/index.htm
http://www.critpsynet.freeuk.com/antipsychiatry.htm
psychdata.blogspot.com/
http://www.critpsynet.freeuk.com/antipsychiatry.htm
Sue's Poem about ECT
A picture of me a year before I had electroshock. I had just turned 17 years old and I was dressed up as I was going to my Grade 12 graduation.I attended at the Sir Wilfrid Laurier High School on Carson Road in Vanier in 1972. I was an in-patient at the Royal Ottawa Hospital on the Whitney 4 ward at the time of this picture. I was let off the ward by the hospital staff to go to my graduation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wrote a poem this year 2007 about my experience with electroshock. My poem is entitled "ECT Hurt Me" I was given ECT against my will at the age of l7 years old, I was not an adult yet in 1973. I got the ECTs forced on me at the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital in Ontario, Canada.
ECT Hurt Me
by Sue Clark-Wittenberg, 2007
(Copyright)
The day I got my first ECT
I recall the room was white
the nurses wore white
the doctor wore white
and I was white as a sheet with fright
I lay on my back on the bed
with wires put on both sides of my head
a rubber band put on my forehead
and a rubber mallet stuck in between my teeth
I was scared to death, terrified
I wanted to jump up and run
but I could not
I saw the ECT machine
right to my left
and knew that horrible machine
was going to be turned on
any minute
and it would hurt my brain
and it did
I woke up after the ECT
dizzy, confused and did
where I was
I was put in a wheelchair
I missed my breakfast
and had to to wait for lunch
a peer on my ward
told me many years later
that when the staff grabbed me
to take me to the ECT room
I screamed, kicked and bit the
staff and hollered
"Somebody, anybody, please
help me"
But nobody did
ECT hurt my brain
No one told me
truth about what ECT
would do to me
because nobody cared
So that is why I want ECT
the atrocity that it is
to be banned, to end
to stop now
so no one else has to
go through the torture
like I did which is called ECT
-------------------------------------
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Dr. Thomas Szasz
Above is a picture of Thomas Szasz, American psychiatrist and author of many books one of which is entitled "The Myth of Mental Illness"
Dr. Thomas Szasz has a website at the URL: http://www.szasz.com
and Dr. Szasz also has a blog at the URL: http://www.theszaszblog
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: http://www.szasz.com/intro.html
Who is Thomas Szasz? by Jeffrey A. Schaler, Ph.D.
He is Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York, Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, Washington, D.C., author and lecturer. His classic The Myth of Mental Illness (1961) made him a figure of international fame and controversy. Many of his works--such as Law, Liberty, and Psychiatry, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, Ceremonial Chemistry, and Our Right to Drugs--are regarded as among the most influential in the 20th century by leaders in medicine, law, and the social sciences.
Born in Budapest in 1920, Thomas Szasz came to this country in 1938 from his native Hungary and within a few months was admitted to the University of Cincinnati. After graduating with honors in Physics in 1941, he entered the College of Medicine of the University of Cincinnati and won his M.D. degree in 1944. Later, Szasz took his psychoanalytic training at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and for the next five years was a member of its staff--taking twenty-four months out for active duty with the U.S. Navy. A FELLOW of the American Psychiatric Association and a LIFE member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Dr. Szasz has published frequently in leading medical, psychiatric, and psychoanalytic journals.
Reviewing Law, Liberty, and Psychiatry in the American Bar Association Journal, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Arthur J. Goldberg wrote: "Dr. Szasz makes a real contribution by alerting us to the abuses--existing and potential--of human rights inherent in enlightened mental health programs and procedures. He points out, with telling examples, shortcomings in commitment procedures, inadequacies in the protections afforded patients in mental institutions and the dangers of over-reliance on psychiatric expert opinion by judges and juries." Charles D. Aring, M.D., Professor of Neurology, University of Cincinnati, praised the book in these words: "One of the most important statements since the publications of Freud. Law, Liberty and Psychiatry is likely to rank among the classics of psychiatry." In an introduction to his writings and thought, Professors Richard E. Vatz and Lee S. Weinberg wrote (1983) "Throughout his distinguished career . . . Thomas S. Szasz has steadfastly defended the values of humanism and personal autonomy against all who would constrain human freedom with shackles formed out of conceptual confusion, error, and willful deception."
John Leo, social science editor for U.S. News & World Report, wrote in 1993 that "No one attacks loose-thinking and folly with half the precision and zest of Thomas Szasz." Paul Roazen, author of Encountering Freud, wrote in 1993 that "Thomas Szasz remains unique among contemporary observers of the social, ethical, and political implications of psychiatry: every argument he makes, and each word he chooses, are deserving of our closest attention."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Thomas Szasz's quotes:
"Involuntary mental hospitalization is like slavery. Refining the standards for commitment is like prettifying the slave plantations. The problem is not how to improve commitment, but how to abolish it."
"Institutional psychiatry is a continuation of the Inquisition. All that has really changed is the vocabulary and the social style. The vocabulary conforms to the intellectual expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-medical jargon that parodies the concepts of science. The social style conforms to the political expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-liberal social movement that parodies the ideals of freedom and rationality."
-Thomas Szasz, M.D.
Find Authors
- Thomas Szasz, American Psychiatrist, author of the book "The Myth of Mental Illness"
Children getting electroshocked
Are they any more whistleblowers out there that know of any children being sent to get electroshock in Canada, the USA or any other country, please let me know.
Your confidentiality is assured. I never reveal my sources. Please email me with the info to: 2005.sueclark@gmail.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abuse of Electroshock Found in Turkish Mental Hospitals
September 29, 2005
PARIS, Sept. 28- Turkey's psychiatric hospitals are riddled with horrific abuses, including the use of raw electroshock as a form of punishment, according to a human rights report issued in Istanbul on Wednesday, just days before Turkey begins formal talks to join the European Union.
The report, by Mental Disability Rights International, a Washington-based group, came after several visits in the past year by the group's investigators to psychiatric hospitals and other facilities for people with developmental or mental disabilities.
While the report details many types of abuses, it said the most disturbing involved the use of electroconvulsive therapy without anesthesia to treat a wide range of illnesses in adults and children. The World Health Organization has called for a ban on "unmodified" or "direct" use of the treatment and states that children should never be subjected to it in any form.
The therapy, in which an electrical current is passed through the brain, was developed in the 1930's and continues to be used in mainstream psychiatry to treat a limited number of ailments. But it is normally administered with anesthesia and muscle relaxants.
Without them it can be painful, terrifying and dangerous. Patients can break jaws or crack vertebrae during the induced seizures. The report quotes a 28-year-old patient at
The Health Ministry, which is responsible for psychiatric hospitals, said it had not yet read the report and declined to comment, other than to say that the director of the electroconvulsive therapy center at Bakirkoy denied administering unmodified electroshocks there.
But on one day in April when the rights group's staff visited the center, 24 people received such treatments, the report said. Technicians at the center told the group that only patients who had broken bones, presumably from previous treatments, were given anesthesia.
The human rights group estimated that unmodified shock treatment was used on nearly a third of patients undergoing psychiatric crises at the government-run hospitals, including children as young as 9. The treatment is also administered for many illnesses, like postpartum depression, that are not generally considered by the international psychiatric community to warrant electroshock.
The investigators also found that the treatment was used as punishment. The report describes patients being dragged to electroshock therapy in straitjackets and forcibly held down during the procedure.
"If we use anesthesia the E.C.T. won't be as effective, because they won't feel punished," the report quotes the director of the electroconvulsive therapy center as saying.
Referring to that statement, Eric Rosenthal, the founder of the rights group, said in a telephone interview from
Now, the new report is likely to complicate
"There's no question that what's described in the report counts as torture under the European convention and shouldn't exist in
He said he would bring up the report as part of the membership negotiations, because to join, a nation must be judged to follow democratic principles, respect human rights and be on its way to meeting certain economic and institutional standards.
The report, which includes testimony from former patients and videos taken inside some institutions, reported other abuses as well.
Much of the documented abuse took place in orphanages and rehabilitation centers for children with developmental or intellectual disabilities. Investigators saw emaciated and neglected children, many of whom had behavioral problems that were likely to have been the result of mistreatment rather than pre-existing illness, Mr. Rosenthal said.
"We saw children who were essentially abandoned, starving, tied down to their beds," he said, adding that investigators had not been allowed to see the worst wards.
Photographs and videos taken at the Saray Rehabilitation Center, the largest of Turkey's government-run rehabilitation centers, show skeletal children, some with plastic water bottles taped over their hands to prevent them from biting their fingers. Other children with only minor disabilities are mixed in with the rest.
Although the center keeps no mortality records, a footnote in the report notes that the large number of admissions without a corresponding number of discharges suggests that many children die at the center.
"We believe there's a very high death rate in these facilities," Mr. Rosenthal said.
Officials at
The report said that there were no enforceable laws in
Mr. Rosenthal founded Mental Disability Rights International in 1993. It now has a staff of nine people, including one in
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------