This article came from Survivors Speak Out:
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Psychiatry can be used to reinforce oppression and limit our expectations of ourselves and others. In this article Jim Read, writing from the perspective of an ex-patient, looks at this problem and at ways it is now being challenged.
The day Tony Benn was elected MP for Chesterfield, in 1984, the Sun newspaper tried to discredit him by publishing an analysis of his character by a "top American psychiatrist". The psychiatrist concluded that Benn was greedy for power and would do anything to satisfy his hunger; he was driven by his own self-interest and thought of himself as god-like.
As the Greenham women and many Labour councillors know, this is not the only time that the language of psychiatry has been used by the political establishment in an attempt to discredit idealists who have gained popular support.
MEDICALISING DISSENT
It was during the industrial revolution with its increased demand for conformity, that people started being labelled "mad" on a large scale. Nearly sixteen times as many people were institutionalised at the end of the 19th century as at the beginning. Since then "medicalising dissent" has happened in a variety of ways. At its most blatant, behaviour which is seen as threatening to the established order is simply given a fancy-sounding name and dismissed as an illness. What are we to make of "transient situation disturbance" applied to a man who was in the navy during the Falklands War? According to his psychiatrist (quoted in the Guardian), "he was suffering from reactive psychosis - losing touch with reality and a conflict of ideology. He had a strong feeling that the war should not have been allowed to happen. He could never manage to identify the Argentineans sufficiently as the enemy." This pseudo-scientific labelling has been backed up by brutal practices presented as medical treatments: strapping people into freezing cold baths for hours on end; injecting them with insulin so that their blood sugar levels become so low they go into a coma; electric shock treatment; and leucotomies - operations to destroy part of the brain. These "treatments" have frequently been supplemented by kickings, beatings and sexual exploitation as mental health workers have abused their positions of power.
MIND-ALTERING DRUGS
The development of mind-altering drugs has enabled psychiatry to spread its wings more widely. Half the women in Britain have taken a minor tranquilliser; many have become addicted and gone through withdrawal. People on major tranquillisers risk permanent damage to the central nervous system, but are often offered no alternative but to stay on them for life. And the influence of the mental health system reaches far beyond the hospital wards, the GP's surgery and the pharmacy. As we grow up we all learn to fear being carried off by the "men in white coats". We hear references to dotty vegetarians, we're called weird if we love the "wrong" people, and loopy if we believe in the "wrong" things. We learn to suppress our fantasies and dreams and to hide our feelings. We even convince ourselves that we believe in the thoughts and the behaviour we learn to adopt in order to fit in and to avoid becoming a target of mental health oppression. Of course it is nonsense to suggest that everyone who is put on tranquillisers is a heroic political dissident who is being silenced by evil political forces. What is true though is that most, if not all, are victims of s society which constantly forces us to accept and believe things about ourselves and others which are not true, and to behave accordingly, which makes us feel there is something wrong with us for wanting more and which won't listen when we cry out for help. It is easy and comfortable to blame psychiatrists for the abuses of the mental health system, but unproductive. We need to remember that they probably grew up scared of "madness" and that they frequently lack the knowledge, skills and resources to care effectively for people who are expressing emotional agony. And there are many thoughtful, loving people to be found working in the mental health system, and many acts of courage and humanity. I remember a friend telling me how she was in a classic "Catch-22" situation: a voluntary patient who would be made a compulsory patient if she tried to leave the hospital. A senior nurse helped her to escape by arranging for her husband to wait outside in a car and smuggling her out during a change of shift.
LACK OF RESOURCES
Until there are massive changes in society we will need a mental health system, where people can seek refuge and be helped to recover from painful experiences. But it needs to be very different from what is currently on offer. It needs to be a service which asks people what they need and tries to provide it; which offers choices; which encourages people to express their feelings - to cry, to laugh, to get angry - in a loving environment; and which assists people to identify and challenge oppression. Recent years gave seen an upsurge of activity among patients, ex-patients and allies, as we begin to challenge to patronising attitudes of many mental health workers, to take power into our own hands and even set up our own services. For instance, in Nottingham patients are setting up committees in every hospital ward; in Greenwich, users of a day centre elect people from their own ranks to form the majority of the management committee; Hackney Mental Health Action Group, a campaigning group led by patients and ex-patients, has drawn up a Charter of Rights for People with Mental Distress, and is represented on the planning group for mental health services in the area.
ALL OF US
Just as people who become patients are not the only ones to suffer from mental health oppression, it is equally true that we are not the only ones who can benefit from fighting back. Learning to lock our feelings in, to hide our love or to grit our teeth and struggle on in isolation is hurtful to all of us. It limits our capacity to live life to the full, to overcome oppression and to be ourselves.
JIM READ
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