tenetsummer04

“Famously Shameless”
SUMMER 2004
Michelle Shocked Energizes
NARPA 2003
Michelle Shocked – songwriter, singer, musician and psychiatric
survivor – gave the opening keynote presentation at the NARPA 2003
Conference in Austin, Texas.
Thank you for inviting me to be part of the NARPA community by speaking
to you tonight. I want to share some thoughts on madness, my own journey
of healing, breaking out from under the many institutions that mold us in
this country, and about the strength in each of us that is multiplied when we
are part of a like-minded community.
I grew up an institutionalized person. I was raised on Army bases; my
stepfather was a staff sergeant, so that everything I experienced growing up
was Army: Army hospitals, Army commissaries, Army movies, Army housing,
everything was a State system. I was raised in a large, extremely poor,
strict fundamentalist Mormon family - another type of institution. And then I
was institutionalized by going through the public school system.
I left home for good at 16, and put myself through the University of Texas
at Austin, another institution, with no financial support from my family. So
when I graduated in 1983, there was this cultural gap - suddenly I was facing
QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER
NARPA
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR
RIGHTS PROTECTION
AND ADVOCACY
Michelle Shocked
life as a civilian. I was discharged from all the institutions in which I’d grown up, and I was not prepared for that. It
was unlike anything that I had ever experienced in my life - an absolute blank slate of total freedom. I had time that
was completely unaccounted for after having had a very exhaustive and rigorous schedule for years. And I didn’t
choose a career path upon graduation. I chose instead a bohemian kind of lifestyle; I began traveling, hitchhiking
and playing music on the street with friends and becoming very active and involved with grassroots politics. And all
the while I continued to nurture and develop my love for poetry and songwriting.
I am an eccentric person. I think in very unorthodox and unconventional ways. It’s not a deliberate effort on my
part; it’s a result of a certain type of adolescent alienation that I addressed by becoming very immersed in literature,
by spending a lot of time by myself and then by developing creative outlets. When I was in the mental hospital, one
of the comments that the psychiatrist made to me was that I was “under the influence of literature.” And I had
enough presence of mind at the time to recognize that statement for the anti-intellectual assessment that it was. But
the influence of literature, and its impact on my life and work and worldview, has been very crucial to my understanding
of who I am.
After graduation, I headed out to San Francisco and became involved in anarchist politics there, and also played
in a street band. One night we took some LSD, and the following day I was still high, I still hadn’t come down. And
we got on a bus to Santa Cruz, where we would sleep in the hills that night, and I started having very powerful
hallucinations. And later we went into town and I became very paranoid, because now it was three days later and I
still hadn’t really stopped hallucinating. And I was wandering around on the streets of Santa Cruz and the police
tried to stop and question me. And because I was feeling so paranoid, I panicked and ran and so they chased after
me, handcuffed me, and I assumed I was being arrested.
Michelle Shocked continued on page 6
Dissident Psychiatrist Loren Mosher,
September 3rd 1933 - July 10 2004, Remembered...
see pages 5, 20, 21

NARPA
Mission Statement
NARPA is dedicated to promoting those policies and
pursuing those strategies that represent the preferred options
of people who have been labeled mentally disabled.
NARPA is committed to advocating the abolishing of all
forced treatment laws.
NARPA believes the recipients of mental health services
are capable and entitled to make their own choices
and they are, above all, equal citizens under the law. To
the extent that the recipients and former recipients may
need assistance to support or express or achieve their preferences,
NARPA is committed to promoting rights protection
and advocacy which focuses on both the right to
choose and the specific choices of those who request assistance.
Therefore, NARPA’s fundamental mission is to
help empower people who have been labeled mentally
disabled so that they may learn to independently exercise
their legal and human rights.
NARPA Rights Tenet: Summer 2004 page 2
Inside This Issue:
Musician Michelle Shocked: NARPA Conference Keynote Address................................................................................. 1
NARPA Conference 2003: United for Social Justice Two Views ......................................................................................... 3
President’s Message ..................................................................................................................................................................... 4
NARPA/NAPAS Dialogue ........................................................................................................................................................ 4
Loren Mosher Remembered......................................................................................................................................... 5, 20, 21
Just Trying to Find Myself -- for Pearl Johnson .......................................................................................................................... 5
Networking in Action: NARPA 2003 Photos ........................................................................................................................ 9
Insulin Shock: A Survivor Account of Psychiatric Torture .............................................................................................. 14
Three Honored with NARPA 2003 Awards ........................................................................................................................ 24
Editors: Darby Penney and Ron Bassman
Production: Will Hall
Mailing address:
The Rights Tenet, c/o Anne Krauss
PO Box 1712, Port Washington, NY 11050-1712
Phone: (516) 944-3533
Email: admin@narpa.org web: www.narpa.org
The Rights Tenet welcomes submission of letters and
other original material to be considered for publication,
preferably via email. Submissions via mail will also be
considered, although no mailed materials will be
returned except with prior arrangement.
The Rights Tenet is a publication of the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy.
Laura Ziegler
President
Vermont
Celia Brown
New York
Board of Directors
Judi Chamberlin
Secretary
Massachusetts
Ron Bassman
New York
Oryx Cohen
Massachusetts
Dennis Feld
New York
Leah Harris
Washington, DC
Bill Stewart
Kentucky
Darby Penney
Vice-President
New York
Tom Behrendt
Treasurer
Connecticut
Stacie Hiromoto
California
Gail Hornstein
Massachusetts
Sonja Kjaer
Washington
Nestor Presas
California
Pat Risser
Oregon

Two Views
NARPA Conference 2003: United for Social Justice
Neely Anne Laurenzo
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My first NARPA conference in
Austin, Texas, was the single
most moving and informative
experience I have had with any
assembly of activists. I felt the
loving cohesion of a broad and
understanding community of admirable
people, people who
have overcome incredible traumas,
risen above painful stigma,
and fought intensive battles with
the United States’s mental health
and legal systems. I also learned
an incredible amount of new in-
formation about various topics, which I hope to now share
with those who didn’t make the conference. And the
best part? I made a lot of new friends and had a damn
good time doing so.
Why did I come to NARPA in the first place? I flew
into Austin without any real goals in mind. I had read
about the c/s/x movement and David Oaks recommended
I travel to Austin to meet the people behind the
activism. So I begged the wonderful NARPA board to
let me take part as a student seeking information about
the c/s/x world. Luckily, for a few small duties – raffle
ticket, ANYONE? - I was able to join NARPA for their
four-day conference. Just imagine those first moments –
I am standing confused in the hotel lobby searching for a
sign as to where the registration table might be. Am I in
the right place? The hotel workers were clueless. And
then Seth came forward with a smile and a handshake –
are you here for NARPA? At last, I made a connection.
We helped each other find the registration area. This is
when I first began to sense NARPA’s commitment to cooperation
and kindness. As we approached registration,
there was a huge banner over the registration table – some-
Neely Anne Laurenzo continued on page 16
Oryx Cohen
Around 200 people came together
in Austin, Texas on November
20 – 23 for NARPA’s
2003 Conference. The weather
was absolutely beautiful, and the
theme was “United for Social
Justice.” This was my third
NARPA conference and my first
as a board member. As a psychiatric
survivor fighting for human
rights in the “mental health”
system, and a relative newcomer
to the consumer/survivor move-
ment, I have found the internal
politics of our movement almost as fascinating as the
external politics we grapple with on a daily basis. Within
our movement, we have disagreements about all sorts of
issues ranging from the use of medications to the extent
we should be organizing internationally to the politics of
accepting government funding. Once again, NARPA
(which is not governmentally funded) provided a most
unique setting for people who consider themselves “consumers,”
“survivors,” “ex-psychiatric inmates,” “lawyers,”
“activists,” “doctors,” “advocates,” “vegan anarchists,”
and even “John Travolta freaks” to come together, argue,
laugh, cry, and share their humanness. As the NARPA
2003 theme implies, our collective hope was to negotiate
our sometimes disparate views, reach out to our allies,
and “unite for social justice.”
The opening keynote presentation on Thursday
evening, “Famously Shameless,” was given by Michele
Shocked, a popular and talented recording artist. Before
her talk, Michele led an impromptu chorus of “Amazing
Grace” in memory of Pearl Johnson, a former NARPA
board member who died last year, leaving a long legacy
of work with consumers/survivors and the African-
Annual Membership Fees:
Oryx Cohen continued on page 17
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NARPA Right Tenet: Summer 2004 page 3

President’s Message
Laura Ziegler
Greetings to the NARPA
membership.
Our next annual rights conference
will take place in 2005, at a
yet-to-be determined location in
the Northeast. We look forward
to seeing you there, and to maintaining
the tradition of excellence
that has marked NARPA
conferences since 1981.
What about 2004?
NARPA is undergoing a transition
aimed at strengthening the
organization and enabling it to continue its mission in a
changing political and economic landscape. We hope to
expand member participation in NARPA’s work, to find
additional funding sources, and especially, to make our
conferences more financially sustainable — both for
NARPA and for attendees. Among other things, we are
exploring alternatives to the upscale hotels where we’ve
met for the past 22 years, and more effective collaborations
with other advocacy organizations.
State governments, advocacy agencies, foundations and
activist groups have something in common: fewer resources
than before. Funding for attending out-of-state
conferences has diminished. We will do our best to adapt,
because it is critical that our work continue.
These are perilous times. The foundations of our judicial
system are shaking, fissures have opened in the bedrock
of liberty and the rule of law can no longer be presumed.
People without disability labels are now targeted
for extended detention with no criminal charges, while
all of us are advised to watch what we say — and, perhaps,
what we think. The federal government announces
“New Freedom” for people with disabilities to live independent
lives outside of institutions, while waging a war
of attrition on the human services, housing subsidies and
entitlement programs which could make that freedom
possible. Meanwhile we face expanded mandates for outpatient
commitment, the pathologizing and drugging of
almost every aspect of life, aggressive marketing disguised
as science, and hate campaigns under the banner of advocacy.
Coercion and force are promoted as enablers,
couched in rhetoric that substitutes “voluntary submission”
for self determination and clinical discretion for
due process.
Yet the ground shifts in more ways than one. The vision
of recovery is gaining official endorsement, and reactionary
attacks on peer run service models and cultural
competency can be viewed as a kind of testament
to their growing acceptance. Restraints-as-usual has been
rejected by a significant part of the mental health establishment.
The pharmaceutical industry’s gross overreaching
and ethical shortfalls have brought it under critical
scrutiny that is increasingly mainstream. Recognition of
President’s Message continued on page 13
NARPA Rights Tenet: Summer 2004 page 4
NARPA/NAPAS
Dialogue
Bill Stewart
The latest round of discussions
between NARPA and the
National Association of Protection
and Advocacy Systems
(NAPAS) was held during our
annual conference in Austin on
November 23, 2003. Our goals
including pursuing a set of agreements
for coordination of activities
between the two groups. Ultimately,
this discussion needs to
culminate in a broader model of
collaboration between groups with similar goals, but different
strategies and circumstance. This is a summary of
the status of those agreements:
1.Several persons said that NARPA should play a role
in development of individual advocacy groups of consumer/survivors.
Many P&As depend on input from consumer/survivors
to develop systems priorities, but in many
states, the movement is co-opted by service providers or
by NAMI or both. There were multiple requests from
P&As for help in getting consumer/survivors to apply
for PAIMI Advisory Councils. (STATUS: NARPA is pursuing
a set of possible funding sources, keeping in mind
our philosophy that accepting funds from government or
for-profit sources is likely to compromise our autonomy.)
2.There was strong agreement that NAPAS and NARPA
should have better electronic information sharing.
Maureen Fitzgerald (NAPAS president) said that Elizabeth
Priaux of NAPAS has volunteered to act as liaison
for NAPAS in the ongoing interaction between the two
organizations. Both organizations agree that sharing and
distributing specific information is advantageous.
3.There was general agreement that NARPA should
consider becoming an associate member of NAPAS, with
two persons suggesting that the fee for associate membership
be waived in light of NARPA’S financial circumstances.
4.At least two participants expressed concern that their
respective P&As were unresponsive and “arrogant” in
their choices of issues taken as priorities for litigation.
Discussion followed of the priority-setting process and
the role of NAPAS when complaints about P&As are
made. Maureen Fitzgerald said that NAPAS is a trade
organization and that the federal agency responsible for
oversight of P&As is in process of creating teams to visit
respective states. (STATUS: Problems with individual
Protection and Advocacy programs are a long-standing
source of contentiousness between our respective groups.
We continue to look for ways to have some productive
outcomes as a result of this dialogue.)
5.We had a discussion of trans-disability issues. A previous
evening workshop revealed some of the differences
NARPA/NAPAS Dialogue continued on page 19

Dissident Psychiatrist
Loren Mosher
Remembered
Darby Penney
As the NARPA Rights Tenet
goes to press, we’ve received
word from psychiatric survivor
Peter Lehmann that Loren
Mosher died July 10 at the
Anthroposophic Clinic
Havelhoehe in Berlin, Germany,
where he was being treated for
liver disease. Loren was a psychiatrist
who believed firmly in
the human rights of people with psychiatric labels, a man
who, as David Oaks of MindFreedom put it, “was like a
Schindler of psychiatry, as in the film “Schindler’s List...a
psychiatrist who fought his own profession’s oppression,
who was a tremendous ally to survivors of psychiatric
human rights violations.”
A frequent presenter at NARPA conferences, Loren
practiced his profession with an integrity that put him at
odds with mainstream psychiatry. In 1969, he was appointed
as the first Chief of the Center for Studies of
Schizophrenia at the National Institute of Mental Health.
In 1971, he started the Soteria Project, which compared
standard hospital treatment for people diagnosed with
schizophrenia to an approach that relied on building relationships
in a non-clinical environment, listening to people
and respecting their understandings of their experiences,
not on neuroleptic medications. Not surprisingly, people
who participated in Soteria fared significantly better than
people who received typical psychiatric treatment. But,
as the Soteria Associates website
(www.moshersoteria.com) explains, “The psychiatric establishment
was offended. Prestige and Money won. Truth
and Love lost. The success of Soteria was the reason
that Dr. Mosher was forced to leave his key position in
American psychiatry.”
What happened to Loren’s career as the result of his
ground-breaking research is a painful reminder of the
power and tunnel vision of the psychiatric establishment.
The results of the Soteria research threatened the ideology
of the medical model; rather than learn from the research,
his profession turned on him. While organized
psychiatry rejected him, Loren found a community among
psychiatric survivors, activists, advocates, and mental
health professionals who shared his belief that
biopsychiatry and forced treatment were not the right
approach. And in 1998, he took the opportunity to turn
the tables on the psychiatric establishment and reject them,
resigning from the American Psychiatric Association
(APA) in a public letter that articulated the case against
psychiatry’s alliance with Big Pharma. This letter, whose
scathing critique of the APA gave great hope and com-
Loren Mosher continued on page 20
Just Trying to Find
Myself
-- for Pearl Johnson
Leah Harris
Long-time NARPA Board
member Pearl Johnson of
Los Angeles died in 2003
after more than 70 years of
struggle. She struggled and
survived unspeakable
difficulties in her life,
emerging as an incredibly
strong and loving activist in
the struggle for human
rights. Pearl’s warmth, grit
and determination in the face of adversity inspired
many of us, including NARPA Board Member
Leah Harris, who wrote this poem in Pearl’s
memory.
Pearl hit the ground running and didn’t ever stop
Trying to find herself.
As a girl, Pearl ran
From the sound and the pound of fists against flesh
From the occupation and violation of her own body
By her own kin. From the double-barreled
Shotgun her mama pointed at her when she was mad.
Ain’t nothing to do but use the legs God gave her
And run for her life.
So Pearl ran.
Chasing survival then chasing the dragon
She ran with her demons right close behind
She said, “I ran till I started sleeping
With a man and got pregnant. I ran
Till I started drinking wine. I ran
Till I got to become a thief.
I ran.”
Pearl ran between the needle
The prison
The street
And the psych ward
Ran from the voices
But couldn’t run far enough and fast
Enough to get away from the men
Who locked her up beat her and did a number on her
spirit
“I don’t know if I had shock treatments or not
cause I went into a state of shock” she said,
Watching as her babies got snatched away
One by one
“They put me on Thorazine and
every kind of ‘zine’ you can think of.
My life was
Poem for Pearl Johnson continued on page 8
NARPA Right Tenet: Summer 2004 page 5

Michelle Shocked continued from page 1
But instead they took me to the mental hospital in Santa
Cruz and I was injected with Thorazine in order to subdue
me. Over the course of the next few days, finally the
inner experience that I was going through ended. I realized
that there was a pay phone in the lobby and that I
could call someone to come get me out. So, I kind of got
it together and I called my dad. He flew out from Dallas,
picked me up, took me to the airport and flew me back to
Dallas, where I stayed with him for a couple of months.
But I was still thinking about the new life that I had set
out on, and so when my friends from the street band contacted
me to say they were coming to Texas, I reunited
with them in Austin. A friend invited me to live in the
science fiction section of his bookstore, which was completely
surreal. He ran a coffee house and there were
open mike nights for poetry and songwriters, and there
was a songwriter’s group in Austin that I participated in.
And we did benefits and small gigs around Austin.
And then I had another episode of what they call psychosis.
I was about to start a job, and I got word that my
friend, who had recently had a baby, had been taken down
to the police station, and they were questioning her to
find out if she tried to kill her baby. The baby had fallen
out of a window, and it’s routine for the police investigate,
to find out if there was an act of negligence on the
parent’s part. I went over to her house and I saw what
appeared to be blood along the wall and I panicked, thinking
that she really had tried to kill her baby. Later I discovered
that it was, in fact, red paint.
But that experience set me off. The next day when I
went to report for my job, I had a flashback. I realize
now that it was a flashback, but at the time it was just a
hallucination, and because I had not taken any drugs, it
was very difficult to conceive of it being a hallucination.
I thought that I was having a vision. I didn’t really know
what was going on. So, some friends were concerned and
they called my father, who didn’t really take it seriously.
He had seen me that first time in Santa Cruz, and he felt
like I was just kind of running amuck, or as he put it,
trying to get attention.
So they called my mother and she absolutely panicked,
thinking that I had gone over the edge. She came and
took me back to East Texas, from where I had run away
when I was sixteen, so that just heightened all manner of
emotional sensitivities I was experiencing at the time. It
was almost like I was trying to resolve the experience of
running away by being back in my childhood home.
After about three days, she wasn’t convinced that I
was any more normal or sane than I was when she picked
me up, so she told me she was taking me to see my grandmother.
But in fact, she took me a hospital in Dallas.
Ironically, it was the hospital where I had been born, which
heightened all of the emotional epiphanies I was going
through. But this time, of course, it wasn’t the maternity
ward, it was the psychiatric ward.
They administered something to me that was so strong
that I was knocked out. I woke up and I was strapped
down to a bed in what looked like intensive care. But
NARPA Rights Tenet: Summer 2004 page 6
even after I woke up and came to, no one, no one came
to talk to me at all, to explain what my circumstances
were. I didn’t know what had happened. The last thing
I knew I was sitting in the waiting room, the next thing I
knew I was strapped to a bed. And so my paranoid state
of mind was exacerbated. I thought I was a monkey in a
zoo. I remember defecating on the hospital bed and the
nurses being outraged like I was an animal. They didn’t
explain that I had a catheter inserted in me, and that’s
why I had this strange feeling in me. No one told me
anything.
Maybe a half a day later my father showed up and kind
of manipulated me into signing some papers. Looking
back now on those papers that I signed, they really reflected
the type of identity crisis I was having. Because
on one paper, I signed with the name I had been given at
birth. On another, I signed with the name I had given
myself. I signed yet another with the name I had been
given when I was adopted as a stepchild. Each time that
I signed one of these papers, which were allegedly proof
that I had voluntarily admitted myself, I was really working
through an intense identity crisis- even the handwriting
was different from signature to signature.
And then they wheeled me into the day room, still
strapped down to the bed. And I was just left there for
two days, and every three hours they would come by and
give me some kind of pill to take. After a couple of days
they un-strapped me, and a nurse came in, and with very
little explanation, just shoved me into the shower, and
basically clawed the shit out of me. And because of the
medication, I couldn’t really figure out what they wanted
me to do. I realized later that they thought that I was
either lousy or covered with vomit or something, but at
the time, no one explained anything to me. And then I
was given a room with a bed, and I started asking myself:
“Where am I? Why am I here? Who are these people and
how do I get out?”
And then there was this whole ridiculous process of
occupational therapy. They had me weaving yarn around
Popsicle sticks and gluing beads onto paper. Meanwhile,
I encountered all these different people who were also in
the hospital: A group of teenagers who would gather in a
corner to smoke cigarettes and complain about their parents
having committed them for drug or alcohol use; a
housewife who needed a break and was in there reading
Ulysses. And a man who would grab his ankles and rock
back and forth and yell, “I’m in hell. I’m in hell.”
And then, of course, every few days the psychiatrist
would show up for a session. And I would sit with her
and talk, and she had obviously talked to my mother.
She had talked to my father. But what I remember best
about those sessions was the psychiatrist who sat there
facing me. She was wearing a gold pendant, and the design
of the pendant was a teddy bear, of all things. And
the teddy bear was designed so that the head was separated
but attached by a chain to the torso, which was
separated but attached by a chain to the legs. In my heightened
state, I couldn’t believe that the psychiatrist would
wear such symbolic evidence of dissociation. What was
she trying to say with this teddy bear ?

The psychiatrist informed me that a judge was going
to be coming to the mental hospital and this judge was to
determine whether I was sound enough to speak on my
own behalf at a hearing about whether I should be committed
to long term care in a state hospital. And that set
off alarm bells for me. And then my father visited me
and said, “You better get it together. This is getting serious.”
So the judge came and I had the experience of talking
to this judge and trying desperately to sound normal and
sane, and yet the whole time I realized that it didn’t matter
what I said to this guy. He was the judge and the jury;
the verdict had already been decided. And sure enough,
I was told that I had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia
and that it had been determined that long term
care was necessary.
Being in a mental institution has all of the contours
and shapes of any other kind of institutional life- and as
I said earlier, the first 22 years of my life were basically
spent in institutions of one kind or another. In the mental
institution, activities are scheduled and very rigid. You
don’t stop when you finish the project. You stop when
the schedule says to stop. The people who work there,
some of them are good people, but the institution pretty
much forbids them from functioning outside a certain
standard of compassion. The institutional mentality told
the staff, “You can have one percent of compassion and
ninety-nine percent follow-the-rules.”
And this mindset is a barrier that makes it almost impossible
for staff to show the depth of true human compassion
that institutionalized people desperately need.
When you are in an altered state, hospitalized, drugged,
isolated from the people you care about, the most important
gift you could receive would be a genuine, caring
connection with another human being. The lack of compassion,
in my mind, is the single biggest failing of the
mental health system.
They kept administering these drugs without explaining
to me what they were. I asked at one point and I was
told it was Haldol. It made my neck seize and I was just
facing the ceiling all the time. And then they started giving
me some other drug for the side effects of the Haldol.
And then - this part kind of happened in a blur - one day
my father came and picked me up and took me out of the
hospital, saying that the insurance had run out.
And so I went to stay with him for a while, and tried to
work. But I was still on the drugs and I couldn’t work,
and he thought I was lazy so he kicked me out. And then
I went to my mother and I asked her for just $100 a month.
I asked her for just a little money to get by on, but really
I was asking for a vote of confidence, for her to show
that I was worth something, anything. And while she had
been perfectly willing to let the insurance or the state
provide for me, when it came to the request for $100 a
month for her own daughter, she turned me down. And I
was so bitter about that.
After my mom turned me down, I left Dallas. I had
this instinct to get out of Texas, and I went to San Francisco.
It was 1984 and things were gearing up for the
presidential elections. I participated in a demonstration
in San Francisco that resulted in my being arrested. And
it was at that event that I gave myself the nom de guerre
of Michelle Shocked. It was intended as a comment on
the fact that a lot of my emotional sensitivities had been
conditioned by the social climate of the Cold War - the
paranoia, the sense of the enemy at the gate - which had
been heightened by the Reagan Administration. When I
was arrested for protesting the Administration’s policies,
I gave myself a name that implied that there were shellshocked
victims of the Cold War, just like shell-shocked
soldiers from World War I, men who returned home from
battle with their bodies intact, but with their minds blown.
I was trying to make the argument that the Cold War policies
of the Regan Administration had contributed to my
heightened sense of paranoia and to my marginalized place
in society.
So I was now Michelle Shocked - shell-shocked in that
way. After I got out of the mental hospital, I started
chopping my hair. And very shortly after that I had a
Mohawk. I’ve always heard that in psychological terms,
chopping one’s hair is a type of suicidal gesture. For me,
it signaled a definitive break with my past, it said “Your
ideas of normal are never going to hold for me. I can’t
live in your world. I’m going to kill the person that I was
and I’m going to live in another world, a world where this
look is normal.”
I went to Dallas that summer for the Republican Convention
and we had a similar protest, where I was also
arrested. And that was just a little too close to home,
having been through the psychiatric hospital experience
earlier that year in Dallas. So, I went to New York City,
thinking that I was going to eventually make my way over
to Europe to live as an expatriate , to wash my hands of
the whole United States system of values.
In New York, I met a woman therapist who tried to
help me arrange for SSI. The advice I got from the SSI
workers was “Why don’t you go back to school? You did
so well.” They were basically saying “You function well
in institutions.” But the therapist, a woman named Isabel
Pierce, pointed out something that I found very significant.
She said, “You’re not crazy. You’re just poor.”
And I found this explanation very revealing. When my
mother had me committed, one of her reasons was that
she thought that I was anorexic. And I wasn’t anorexic, I
just didn’t have any money for food. And I’m sure that’s
what kind of made me lighter than air in some respects.
I’ve come to realize that nutrition really contributes enormously
to your mental state.
In the Spring of ‘85, I made my way over to Europe
and I lived in Amsterdam in a squat, an abandoned building
which was owned by the city. The Dutch were pretty
tolerant of economic refugees like myself who lived on
the margins, and the squatting movement had created a
sense of sanctuary from police hassle. And I used that
eighteen month period to get my balance again, to try to
process what had happened to me. At age 23, for the
first time, I had a place that was a refuge from the emotional
upheavals I experienced ever since I had run away
Michelle Shocked continued on page 8
NARPA Right Tenet: Summer 2004 page 7

Poem for Pearl Johnson continued from page 4
Real,
real,
real,
real,
rough.”
Pearl ran for half a century
Till she out-ran her demons Left ‘em choking in the
dust
And found her legs steady on the track
Pounding towards liberation
Running with the crazy folk
The folks hooked on crack
The abused folks
The folks hearing voices
The folks no one else wanted
The mamas who lost their babies
The folks with their demons chasing them down
Running together, freeing each other
Fighting the Man with every breath
And Pearl Johnson ran till the day
God called her up to Heaven, saying:
“Honey, it’s time you finally had a rest.”
By Leah Harris
* quotes from an interview with Pearl
Johnson in Vanessa Jackson’s In Our
Own Voice: African-American
Stories of Oppression, Survival,
and Recovery in Mental Health
Systems.
Michelle Shocked continued from page 7
from home at age 16.
People sometimes ask me if the experiences that led
to my hospitalization had any kind of positive impact on
my work as an artist. That question is similar to one that
I’ve been asked concerning the origins of my career as a
recording artist, which began in a very unusual way. I
was volunteering at a festival in Kerville, Texas, when an
Englishman approached me and asked if I would sing
some songs into his Sony Walkman. He told me he was a
journalist and that he was doing a story for a magazine in
England called Folk Roots. So, I was charmed by the
attention and I proceeded to fill up his entire tape with
my songs. He went back to England and first played the
tape on the BBC, as a session that was kind of like “My
Adventures in America.” From the reaction that they got
from people phoning in, in response to the tape, he decided
to issue it as a bootleg.
And over the years, I’ve experienced enormous legal
and financial complications because my copyrights were
violated in that manner. But people sometimes ask me,
NARPA Rights Tenet: Summer 2004 page 8
“Aren’t you glad that this started your career? Aren’t you
glad that you were discovered? Don’t you think that if
he hadn’t discovered you, you’d still be unknown?” And
all I can say is that when you fuck with a person’s destiny,
it is a very powerful responsibility to do so. I can no
more answer the question about what my creative destiny
would have been if this man hadn’t interfered than I
can answer the question about having been first picked
up by the police and later committed against my will by
my mother to a mental hospital. But I can tell you that
the stigma that was attached to this institutionalization
is something that I’ve spent the rest of my life transforming
into something positive and good. And had I lived
my life without that stigma, I don’t know what my life
would have been like. This is a subject that can be easily
romanticized and I just don’t buy into the romance of it.
The experience was ugly.
I’ve come to understand that my experience was a spiritual
crisis. I had been raised Mormon, had been fed all
manner of doctrine that was offensive to my innate sensibilities,
such as their doctrine concerning race, their
doctrine concerning relationships between men and
women, and their doctrine concerning personal conduct.
As a young person, you see so much hypocrisy, both in
the doctrine and in the actual conduct. Those things had
offended my sensibilities so deeply that my solution was
to believe that I could reject entirely, whole cloth, everything
that I had been indoctrinated with.
And it was only when I had taken the LSD and had the
flashback, I recognized that all of my references during
the flashback were to Armageddon-like metaphors. I realized,
“Damn it. They got to me young. They completely
shaped and formed my way of conceiving of the
universe as a battlefield.” And this was the cosmos that
I had been thrust into, and I recognized when I had the
acid flashback that I had been raised to be a spiritual
warrior fighting the battle of good versus evil. And it
was a real shock to me to realize that I was no more in
control of my ability to reject that indoctrination than I
was in my ability to transform it at that time in my life.
It’s almost like my character set up the experiences that
allowed me to go so far out on a limb that someone noticed
it and said, “You need to be in a mental hospital.” I
had a tendency to isolate. I had a tendency to go against
the pack. I had a tendency to be interested in and do
things that others didn’t think were worthwhile. So, it
just made it easier to keep going further and further to
the point where someone decided that it was extreme.
Now that I’m forty-one years old, my perspective on
my past experiences comes from not only a life of fighting
and transforming the stigma of having been a mental
patient, but of a life spent trying to resolve the same issues
that I was addressing during that ‘ecstatic poet’ phase
of my life. And those issues became resolved for me not
through any psychiatric intervention, but rather through
a very deliberate, active surrender on my part. And in
this case I’m talking in the spiritual context of recognizing
that we are essentially spiritual beings living in a material
world. That this world is not our home. That it is
Michelle Shocked continued on page 15

Networking in Action: NARPA 2003
Photos by Tom Olin
Derrick Fort (l), Board Member of Advocacy
Unlimited, Hartford, CT, and George Badillo, Peer
Educator, Long Island, NY. Photo by Tom Olin
Margaret Crowdis,
Missouri. Photo by
Tom Olin
Jacki McKinney of the National People of Color
Consumer Survivor Network (l) and Rene
Andersen, Executive Director, Western
Massachusetts Training Consortium. Photo by
Tom Olin
Tom Behrendt,
Legal Director of
the Connecticut
Legal Rights
Project, and
NARPA
Treasurer.
Photo by Tom
Olin
Left to right: J. Rogue, Katherine Hodges, NARPA
Board member Leah Harris, and Vikki Gilbert
presented a workshop on strategies for organizing
young people. Photo by Tom Olin
Bill Stewart of Kentucky, outgoing NARPA
President, and Neely Ann Laurenzo of Chicago,
enthusiastic first-time NARPA conference-goer,
preside over the ever-popular NARPA Raffle.
Prizes included a Quentin Tarrantino autograph,
gathered by the alert Pat Risser, NARPA Board
Member, in the conference hotel lobby. Photo by
Tom Olin
NARPA Right Tenet: Summer 2004 page 9

NARPA Conference 2003 cont. from page 9
Bob Kafka’s keynote, “Still ‘Crazy’ After
All These Years: Visions of an Old
Activist,” tackled the need for crossdisability
unity with wisdom and
wisecracks. Bob is National Organizer
with ADAPT and Co-director, Institute for
Disability Access. Photo by Tom Olin
Elizabeth Priaulx, Senior
Disability Legal Specialist with
the National Association for
Protection and Advocacy
Systems (NAPAS). Photo by
Tom Olin
NARPA Rights Tenet: Summer 2004 page 10
Jacki McKinney of Philadelphia (l), movement
matriarch, with NARPA Board Member Celia
Brown of New York. Photo by Tom Olin
“Out of the Quiet Room
and Onto the Pulpit!” was
the rallying cry of Beth
Mitchell’s stirring
keynote. Beth is Legal
Services Senior Attorney
with Advocacy, Inc.,
Austin, Texas.Photo by
Tom Olin

Larry Plumlee,
Bethesda, MD, is
obviously pleased to be
at NARPA. Photo by
Tom Olin
Phil Schulman’s massage chair was, handsdown,
a favorite spot at NARPA 2003. Photo
by Tom Olin
Susan Stefan offered
her perennially popular
workshop, “Recent
Developments in Mental
Health Law.” Susan is
an attorney with the
Center for Public
Representation in
Newton, MA. Photo by
Tom Olin
Kim Darrow (l), Mental Hygiene
Legal Services, New York, and
NARPA President Laura Zeigler of
Vermont. Photo by Tom Olin
Peter Stastny’s workshop “In Mental Health, Good Ideas Are
History,” focused on successful alternatives to standard
psychiatric treatment which were never widely implemented
because they challenged the ideology of the medical model.
Photo by Tom Olin
NARPA Right Tenet: Summer 2004 page 11

NARPA Conference 2003 cont. from page 11
Ann Rider of Arizona with Ed Paquin, Executive
Director, Vermont Protection & Advocacy. Photo
by Tom Olin
Steven Schwartz is
Executive Director of the
Center for Public
Representation in
Newton, MA. His
keynote presentation
asked conference-goers
to face “The Challenge of
Advocacy: Maintaining
Integrity and Cultivating
Compassion.” Photo by
Tom Olin
NARPA Rights Tenet: Summer 2004 page 12
Tardive Dyskinesia
activist and NARPA
Board Member Sonja
Kjaer of Washington
State. Photo by Tom
Olin
Texas particpants (from left) Leo Casas,
Christopher Flores, Frank Valdez, Bill
Knod, Udanna Gonzalez, Mario
Gutierrez, Mary Hidalgo, Janet Paleo.
Photo by Tom Olin
Ron Bassman of Albany, NY,
NARPA Board Member and coeditor
of The Rights Tenet.
Photo by Tom Olin

Rachel Freund of Pittsburgh greets a friend.
Photo by Tom Olin
Ira Burnim, Legal Director of the
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law,
Washington, D.C., gave a report from
the front on “Trying to Reform a
Massive Children’s System.”
Photo by Tom Olin
NARPA Board Members Pat Risser of
Oregon (l) and Susan Stefan of
Massachusetts. Photo by Tom Olin
Tom Olin, photographer
extroadinaire of the disability
rights movement.
President’s Message continued from page 4
people with psychiatric disabilities as trauma survivors
has begun to catalyze essential change.
Whether the gains have offset the losses is not the point.
In the words of I.F. Stone:
“The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you
are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them
and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who
believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an
important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other
people have got to be willing — for the sheer fun and joy
of it — to go right ahead and fight, knowing you’re going
to lose. You mustn’t feel like a martyr. You’ve got to enjoy
it.”
NARPA Right Tenet: Summer 2004 page 13

Insulin Shock - A
Survivor Account Of
Psychiatric Torture
by Don Weitz
Editorial note: This personal account of my insulin
shock experiences is based on an invited lecture in
the course Mad People’s History organized by
historian Geoffrey Reaume in the School of
Disability Studies, Ryerson University in Toronto.
This article is an edited draft of an expanded and
revised version of my speech delivered on
September 13, 2003.
Shortly after I dropped out of Dartmouth College, psychiatrists,
my parents and sister colluded in arranging my
involuntary commitment to McLean Hospital on November
6, 1951. McLean is a major psychiatric teaching-andresearch
institution affiliated with Harvard University
Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. It’s
a heavily-funded drug-and-shock mill located in Belmont,
a suburb few miles outside Boston.
On the admission sheet, I was labeled “schizophrenia
- acute undifferentiated reaction”. However, I was never
“mentally ill” or ”schizophrenic”
- just confused and troubled as
hell while going through an intense
identity crisis like millions
of other young people. At the
bottom of the admission sheet,
a psychiatrist wrote, “Suitable
for insulin or electroshock.” Fortunately,
I escaped electroshock. However, less than two
months after being incarcerated in McLean, psychiatrist
Douglass Sharpe prescribed a course of subcoma insulin
shocks. He never once informed or warned me about the
major effects or risks of the shock treatments - before or
during the treatment to which I was subjected 7 weeks
after admission.
On December 26, 1951, Dr. Sharpe started me on 5
units of insulin, he rapidly increased the dosage by daily
increment of 5. Within 3 days I was injected with 20-25
units three times a day. During each treatment, I perspired
and ate like a pig because insulin makes you ravenously
hungry as it lowers the blood-sugar - the doctors call it
hypoglycemia. Before the shocks, I weighed roughly 145
pounds, 6 weeks later when the shocks stopped, I weighed
194 pounds.
My insulin-induced hunger or forced starvation was
intense and excruciatingly painful. It went to the core of
my very being. There are two types of insulin shock -
coma and subcoma, I got the latter. However, I once went
into a coma which Dr. Sharpe and other psychiatrists never
warned me about, and which is carefully omitted on my
medical chart.
Subcoma shock, also called hypoglycemic shock, was
extremely debilitating and torturous. Each insulin reac-
NARPA Rights Tenet: Summer 2004 page 14
tion lasted three to four hours -mercifully “terminated”
by drinking fruit juice laced with glucose or dextrose.
Here follows verbatim excerpts of some of my reactions
to insulin subcoma shock and the nurses’ observations
and comments as written on McLean Hospital’s Insulin
Treatment Chart: Note the comments re: my complaints
and attempts to resist the treatment.
Day 6 - Treatment 15 “He dramatically calls out, ‘I
can’t take this any longer. It’s too unjust. I am not strong
enough.’ Mild perspiration.”They were giving me 75 units.
Within one week I was getting three shots of insulin a
day which lasted six weeks, it felt like six years.
Day 10 - Treatments 25 & 26"Sweating profusely. Skin
very cold and clammy. Does not want insulin anymore,
he stated. He asked to see the Head Nurse to discontinue
the treatment - he terminated himself with cookies
and oranges,.etc breakfast.[A few hours later] Dr. Sharpe
notified about termination and said to just continue as
usual.”
Day 12 - Treatment 31 “Perspiring moderately. Alert
and responsive. Whining that he ‘can’t stand it.’” “Whining
that he can’t stand it.” I felt tortured.
Day 17 - Treatment 69 “Profuse sweating. Drowsy and
tossing in bed. Patient saying: ‘I can’t take it.’ Still perspiring
profusely, pupils dilated. Patient very drowsy yelling,
‘I can’t take it.’ Perspiring profusely. No response
from patient. Patient still
My insulin-induced hunger or
forced starvation was intense and
excruciatingly painful. It went to the core
of my very being.
had cough reflex so juice
was given until revived. Just
before terminated patient
had muscle spasms, eyes became
glassy and starry pupils
and no response could
be obtained. Patient was
terminated with difficulty with p.o. [by mouth]. Patient
remembers nothing. Patient was seen by Dr. Horwitz.”I
was probably in a coma but the staff didn’t have the honesty
to write this down in the clinical-nursing notes. At
that time, I was subjected to a daily dose of 270 insulin
units - 90 units administered 3 times a day.
Day 20 - Treatment 52 “What happened?’” (That’s a
quote from me. I didn’t know what was going on. I could
not remember the last part of the treatment.) “Patient
showed moderate perspiration, slowness of speech and
mild tremor just prior to termination at end of full course.
Patient could not remember last end of treatment - says
he fell asleep again.”I was probably going into coma or
about to. Tremors are also very common as the insulin
dose is increased. I also began to shake and convulse uncontrollably.
Day 22- Treatment 57 “Severe twitching - tremors -
face very pale. No response. Terminated with some difficulty,
weeping occasionally.” They like to use the word
‘terminate’ in psychiatry. Weeping and uncontrollable emotional
outbursts (“insulin excitement”) are other common
effects of insulin shock. As the dose increases, you lose
considerable emotional and physical control. Sometimes
I wept, screamed or shouted.
Day 23- Treatment 60 “Some tremors, response poor,
face very pale, some twitching of face.

Day 24- Treatment 63 “Pt. became drowsy about 4pm
and had to be awakened several times. Perspiration, facial
tremors & fits of crying”
Day 25 - Treatment 66:”Perspiring profusely, very slow
response, skin cool, Pt. remarked, “‘ I can’t take it.’”
Day 29 - Treatment 77: “Slow tongue-mouthing(?),
grimacing, twitching of facial muscles and extremities.”
Day 32- Treatment 84: “Pt. seeking reassurance. Says
he’s had enough of this insulin. Pt remarked this was the
biggest reaction. Skin was moist. Response slow.”
Day 33 - Treatment 86: “Apprehensive about going
into coma - states he was very worried about his condition
this AM.”
Day 34 - Treatment 90: “Emotional outburst, shouting
and sobbing up; and down hall that he must get out
of here, that he can’t stand insulin any longer, etc. Still
sobbing frequently and unpredictably faint tremors, slight
twitching of facial muscles in addition to above. Very
confused.”
Day 36- Treatment 98: “Perspiring freely. Myoclonic
twitching of the face. Tremor of the hand. Bizarre movements.
Resistive to termination. Terminated with a great
deal of resistance, using pure dextrose.
Day 40 - Treatment 104: “Stumbled twice on returning
from bathroom (? Inco-ordination) - jerky movements
of arms & legs.”The nurse’s question mark is probably
her attempt to blame this accident on my apparent “incoordination”
- not the insulin.
Day 45 - Treatment 110 [last treatment]”No tremors.
Delayed reaction. Recovery.”
When you’re twitching, shaking or convulsing, your
brain is adversely affected. Fortunately, I escaped brain
damage - a common effect of insulin coma shock.
110 insulin shocks later, I felt wasted physically-emotionally-intellectually,
I was totally wiped out from this
so-called “safe and effective treatment” for “schizophrenia”.
I wasn’t the only McLean patient to be insulin
shocked - I recall seeing a young, 17-year old blond boy
who was also shocked.
I was 22 when finally released from McLean in 1953,
approximately one year after they stopped shocking me.
The main reason I was released was because I told the
staff what they wanted to hear - I planned to return to
university and continue psychotherapy with Dr. Sharpe
or another psychiatrist as an outpatient. I still recall few
days after being subjected to shock asking Dr. Sharpe,
“Why are you torturing me?” He just smiled, patronized
and insulted me: shrink psychiatric logic, blame the patient-victim.
This is an excerpt from Dr. Sharpe’s clinical summary
of the insulin shocks. Note his rare admission that he
prescribed insulin shock to cure my ”temper tantrums” -
my justified anger toward my parents and being shocked
and locked up in this psychoprison. In his notes, Dr. Sharpe
also omitted mentioning that I once lapsed into an insulin-induced
coma and could have died.
“From time to time in his tempter tantrums he would
be destructive of furniture in his room, The patient was
finally placed on sub-coma insulin and after a month of
sub-coma insulin three times a day he showed tremen-
dous improvement in his general over-all picture. There
was no longer the outbursts of temper”
I was damn lucky to have escaped electroshock and
brain damage including permanent memory loss. Thousands
of psychiatric survivors were not so fortunate; many
have died and will die from psychiatry’s “safe and effective,
lifesaving treatment” such as electroshock and forced
drugging with neuroleptics and/or antidepressants.
Since the mid-1960s, insulin shock is no longer prescribed,
mainly because it caused too many “adverse reactions”
including death - the death rate for insulin coma
shock was 5%-7%. Today, electroshock (“E.C.T.”) is more
widely prescribed, especially for depressed women and
elderly people. It’s more efficient, produces faster bran
damage (“improvement”). A word of advice: Do whatever
it takes to stay out of or escape the psychiatric system
- your health and life are at stake.
Biographical note: Don Weitz is an anti-psychiatry activist,
co-editor of Shrink Resistant (1988), host-producer of
“Antipsychiatry Radio” on CKLN, member of the Psychiatric
Survivor Archives Committee, and co-founder of the Coalition
Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA) in Toronto.Contact info:
1401-38 Orchard View Blvd., Toronto, Ontario M4R 2G3,
Email: dweitz@pathcom.com
Michelle Shocked continued from page 7
alien to us and that with any degree of sensitivity, psychically
we will find ourselves over and over again in very
foreign and uncomfortable situations, and that each
individual’s reaction or response to these situations may
vary. But I’ve resolved for myself a surrender to this fact
and an acceptance of my true spiritual nature.
About 1992, I was looking for the roots of the blues
and the R&B music that was stimulating my imagination,
and I had a hunch that I was going to find the roots of it
in Gospel music. I starting going to a church in South
Central LA called West Angeles, an African -American
denomination called Church of God in Christ. I started
going there mostly for the great gospel choir, which was
very uplifting and inspiring. Every Sunday I felt like, “This
would be such a great experience if they just give all that
Jesus stuff a rest.” But I was also going to this church
partly from an instinct that I needed to create some kind
of formal spiritual foundation for my life. And I tell
people, I just went one Sunday too often. And then one
Sunday in the true Christian sense, He touched my heart
and I walked down to the altar and was saved, redeemed,
forgiven, and all my sins were washed away.
For me, there is a strong connection between forgiveness
and healing. There’s a story in the Bible where Jesus
is casting out demons, and the Pharisees are accusing him,
saying “Why are you telling people that their sins are forgiven,
when in fact you are healing them, telling them to
rise up from their bed and walk again? And He says,
Michelle Shocked continued on page 16
NARPA Right Tenet: Summer 2004 page 15

Michelle Shocked continued from page 15
“What’s the difference if I say you are healed or you are
forgiven? What’s the difference?” So today I think about
this issue in the same terms that I would have then, I had
the understanding at age 22 to talk about these things in
a complex, poetic way, with nuanced metaphor and sensitivity.
One of the things that happened to me as a result of
all my experiences is that I began to recognize that shame
is a social control mechanism, and I began to have a much
lower opinion of shame as a useful measure of what my
response to circumstances should be. When you feel
shame about having been institutionalized, you lose the
ability to advocate for yourself. You no longer speak up.
And that silence…that muting…that paralysis is what
makes me so angry about shame. If no one else is going
to speak up for you, why should shame have the power
to cause you to not speak up for yourself? And, once
you do speak up for yourself, you get judged as a raving
lunatic. If everything else has been taken away from you,
at the very least you should be allowed to speak for yourself
and have that dignity.
I saw people who had the official stamp of “normal”
placed on them, people who were arbitrators of “normal,”
making very bizarre and in some cases, just inaccurate
judgments of me. I began to kind of suspect that
the value of “normal” is not so great. I become passionate
about truth, and the metaphor that holds is that of
the emperor’s new clothes. I don’t really care if I’m the
only kid in the crowd saying “He ain’t got no clothes on.”
I think this was catalyzed by the hospital experiences,
because if there had ever been a chance that I was going
to be repressed into being “normal,” it was in the hospital,
because the consequences that I faced were so severe.
I look at it as a short sharp shock. The implication
was: “You think you’re weird? Here’s what society does
to weirdos. You don’t want to be treated like this, do
you?” And my response was, “You know what, society
sucks. Treat me how you got to treat me, but I’m just
going to keep on keepin’ on. I think I’m right.”
And so I found artistic ways of expressing issues that
concerned me, rather than through psychological dramas.
And I definitely focused on political outlets for my expression.
And then I also developed a reputation for
being, well, quirky. I’ve created a world for myself, and in
my world, Michelle Shocked is very sane and normal.
The world I live in profits from my creativity. Creativity
comes from my unorthodox view of the world. It’s empowering.
It’s definitely empowering because I know
what I’ve had to crawl up from in order to have this quality
of mine celebrated rather than condemned.
NARPA is a place where the journeys of people like
myself are honored and understood, and I have a great
appreciation for that. But this movement is not just about
celebrating the healing and growth of individuals whose
lives were disrupted by psychiatry. It is also the place
from which change must come. Right here in this room,
we have the skills, knowledge, talent, power, and energy
to fix what’s broken and create something new. Our ex-
NARPA Rights Tenet: Summer 2004 page 16
perience with psychiatric oppression, and our ability to
stand up to it - this makes us a community. And communities
working together in a spirit of compassion is what
creates positive social change. This has been true
throughout history, and we need to remember it today,
when it sometimes feels like the forces of backlash and
oppression are on the rise.
As a community, we can take strength in the words of
Mohandas Gandhi, a man who understood how to use
moral force to defeat an overwhelming foe. During the
non-violent struggle for Indian independence from Britain,
he came to the following understanding, which should
give heart to all people working for social justice:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then
they fight you, then you win.”
© Copyright 2003 by Michelle Shocked and Darby
Penney. Used by permission.
Neely Laurenzo continued from page 3
thing like FREEDOM FROM THE OPPRESSION OF
PSYCHIATRY – and I looked around at all of the quirky
characters suddenly milling about me. The people from
the digital technology conference upstairs in their suits
and ties with uptight looks on their faces were easily distinguishable
from the friendly smiles, long shaggy hair,
flip flops, activist T-shirts, and general relaxed nature of
the NARPA crowd. One man offered massages and
played peaceful music. People greeted old friends with
embraces and stories.
That first night, we all piled into the main meeting room
to see and hear a memorial for the late NARPA Board
Member Pearl Johnson. Even though I never knew her,
the intensity of emotions that people in the room expressed
for her as they mourned her in eulogies, photos,
and song, had me in tears. I wrote down what she wanted
the world to remember – don’t throw away your vision
because your plans were foiled. I hope to continue sharing
Pearl’s piece of wisdom with as many people as I can.
Next, Michelle Shocked talked for some time about her
life. Let me just say, that woman has amazing charisma!
She awakened me to the stigma surrounding mental illness
by describing her struggles against it throughout her
life. She described how psychiatric environments need
to be more compassionate to people in crisis. She brought
me into the warm glow of her faith, which has finally
strengthened her to forgive the past and embrace her future.
Later, at the reception buffet, I met many more
fascinating characters – outgoing NARPA president Bill
Stewart, and Linda Morrison, a professor studying the
survivors from an insider and sociological perspective.
Then, after grabbing some food, I found myself in downtown
Austin at a friendly and casual venue, watching
Michelle Shocked perform for all who would listen.
NARPA Board Members Ron Bassman and Darby Penney
welcomed me and we enjoyed her magical performance
along with the rest of the crowd. I felt at ease immediately
with my new NARPA friends. I think challenging
life experiences make us all more adaptable and friendly

in the long run!
The next morning, I missed the keynote, but made it
in time to hear parts of Stacie Haine’s and Nancy Fudge’s
presentation on Florida’s Self-Directed Care. Then I
caught the tail-end of an immense debate about peer support
and research using the narrative approach, hosted
by Shery Mead and Cheryl MacNeil, which I wish I had
been able to experience in full. The passion and energy
for peer support in the room inspired me to look into this
topic more fully as a researcher.
Next, we all wandered into the grand ballroom to eat a
swanky lunch with Bob Kafka of ADAPT as the keynoter.
I bonded with some people at the table – a lawyer,
two activist center leaders, and another graduate student
–excited by the diversity, openness and friendliness of
my fellow conference attendees. When he spoke, Kafka
suggested that the c/s/x movement join forces with the
disability movement, which was met with an interesting
debate from the group at large.
In the afternoon, I first visited the Psychiatric Emergency
Services Project presentation with the lovely Sonja
Kjaer who told me, “You are such a nice girl, please stay
out of the system!” – a sobering thought. Steve Miccio
and Susan Stefan presented a brilliant new program to
provide comfortable and sensitive emergency psychiatric
services to people in crisis. It may seem like common
sense, but it is definitely far from the norm in the United
States, although widely practiced in Europe. Then I
sneaked over to Recovery: An Evidence-Based Practice
to hear Cheryl Stevens talk about the WRAP program
that helps people transform their lives by moving beyond
illness and embracing recovery. When Vikki Gilbert honestly
explained she did not feel well enough to present,
no one even batted a reproachful eyelash in her direction.
Instead, concern and care were directed at her as
she left the room. This is in sharp contrast to most professional
settings where a “show must go on” attitude
compromises the well-being of presenters who may be
feeling under the weather. Again, I felt like I had found a
compassionate and open-minded community of people
working together to help each other and change the world.
If only there were more groups like this one!
After a refreshment break, I visited a workshop by Dan
Fisher on insuring the proper implementation of the President
of the United States’ New Freedom Commission on
Mental Health. The consensus? There is a great need
and will for change, but not enough funding to really enact
this change. Dan inspired us to play our part in holding
the President accountable for his promises. I also
agreed with one of his major tenets – the soul gives voice
to life and recovery. This kind of spiritual sensitivity is
also widely ignored by the mental health system. I must
admit that after this, my exhaustion caught up with me
and I headed back to the hotel, thereby missing the
evening presentation which I genuinely regret since Tom
Olin, Darby Penney, Bob Kafka, Jim Ward, and Ron
Bassman – so the rumor goes – gave an excellent overview
of disability activism in the past twenty years.
Saturday morning, Beth Mitchell’s breakfast keynote
presentation about going public with psychiatric experi-
ences in order to help the community at large made me
ponder what a selfless and painful process going public
must be in our stigmatized culture. Even in this protective
environment, it took a great deal of courage for people
to share their stories. I was especially appalled by stories
of rape while drugged or in restraints that I heard throughout
the weekend, but they helped me realize the direness
of the situation and inspired me to action.
Next, Peter Stastny’s presentation provided us with a
history of mental health care and how it has essentially
been ruined by psychiatry over the past century or so as
they attempted to organize the “mentally ill’s” social lives
– with little success – and then moved on to trying to
organize brains through lobotomy and chemical straitjackets.
His bottom line – and a wide consensus of those
in the room – was that self-help works and needs to be
implemented on a broader scale; care should occur in the
community of people with psychiatric labels as well as in
the community at large to be truly effective.
I am officially out of space, so I must be brief in describing
the end of the conference. A cascade of images.
Dilapidated suitcases from a state mental hospital possessing
all the worldly items of some who slipped through
the cracks and never got their lives back. Eating lunch
outside with Vikki Gilbert and Oryx Cohen and exchanging
life stories and aspirations while building a sense of
mutual respect and friendship. Eating Mexican food outside
with Jim Ward, Tom Olin, and Ron Bassman, and
many others, while discussing the incredible need for
change, the history of what has been accomplished so
far, and hopes for the future. Rocking around 5th Street
with Cheryl MacNeil, Tom Olin, and Bill Stewart later
on Saturday night. Learning about Hearing Voices groups
in England from Gail Hornstein – groups where people
who hear voices aren’t labeled as psychotic, but rather,
form communities of support to cope with a fairly normal
experience. And the echo of my main contribution
to the conference – who wants a raffle ticket?!
So, how would I sum up my first conference experience?
Well, I guess I mostly just did, but I would like to
add that it is the people in the movement and their incredible
experiences that make being an activist in this
community worthwhile. I strongly encourage everyone
to experience your fellow activists in this conference setting
next time. You will laugh – did I NOT mention
some amazing sense of humor? You will cry; you will
hope; and you will come away with the strength and conviction
to keep doing your part to help people with psychiatric
labels create a better mental HEALTH system
based on friendship, compassion, and recovery. Thank
you, NARPA! I can’t wait for 2005!
NARPA Right Tenet: Summer 2004 page 17

Oryx Cohen continued from page 3
American community. It was as if the spirit of Pearl
returned, because if anybody was known for impromptu
gospel, it was her. This was an emotional lead-in to
Michele’s talk, where she openly shared with us her experiences
with psychiatry, hospitalization, and how she got
the heck out! She went from political dissident mental
patient, to political dissident rock star. Wow, rock on
sister! Michele ended her talk with a quote from
Mohandas Gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they laugh
at you, then they fight you, then you win!” (The full text
of Michele’s speech is available at http://narpa.org/
michelle.shocked.htm).
Later that night, after enjoying the delicious hors
d’oeuvres (which included quesadillas Austin style, my
personal favorite) and assorted beverages, not to mention
catching up with old friends, many of us NARPA
folks headed out on the town for an old Western hoe
down! We even heard rumors that Michele Shocked was
playing somewhere in this Texas town, but alas, my small
cohort was unable to find where. However, my small
cohort did manage to find the sauna. It was quite exciting
to hop on the glass elevators and zoom up one of the
tallest buildings in Austin. The hotel was beautiful inside
and all lit up with white lights. After the sauna, we
ventured up to the hot tub which was on top of the hotel.
What a view of the city! After our wrinkled bodies
were finally kicked out by a group of partying teenagers,
we took to the city. Two blocks from the hotel was Sixth
Street, and quite an impressive array of clubs and live
music. Alas, we did not find Michele Shocked, but we
talked and walked and strategized late into the night, and
had quite an enjoyable time nonetheless.
I entered the next day feeling tired, but more united,
more bonded to this group than ever before. Steven
Schwartz, J.D., the Executive Director of the Center for
Public Representation in Massachusetts woke everybody
up Friday morning with his keynote entitled, “The Challenge
of Advocacy: Maintaining Integrity and Cultivating
Compassion.” His talk had depth and wisdom that
reflects his over 30 years experience as an advocate to
people with psychiatric labels. (A detailed outline of
Steven’s speech is available at http://narpa.org/
integrity.htm).
After a short break, the first slate of workshops began.
Once again NARPA offered an impressive array of workshops
ranging from children’s mental health issues, to legal
workshops, to historical presentations, to grassroots
organizing. The workshops featured such movement
shakers as Chery Mead, M.S.W. and Cheryl MacNeil,
Ph.D.; Judi Chamberlin, Pat Risser, and Tom Behrendt,
J.D.; Susan Stefan, J.D.; Cheryl Stevens M.D. and Vikki
Gilbert; Jackie McKinney and Celia Brown; Daniel Fisher,
M.D., Ph.D.; Joyce Johnson, Ph.D. and Ron Bassman,
Ph.D.; Peter Stastny, M.D.; Dale Boam, J.D.; Gail
Hornstein, Ph.D.; John Breeding, Ph.D.; Al Siebert, Ph.D.;
Jim Gottstein, J.D.; Beth Mitchell, J.D.; Leah Harris,
Katherine Hodges, and Jenny Rogue; Bill Stewart; Dennis
Feld, J.D. and Kim Darrow, J.D.; and yours truly, Oryx
NARPA Rights Tenet: Summer 2004 page 18
Cohen, M.P.A.
Phew! Now that’s a lot of letters behind a lot of names.
I apologize to those I didn’t list, but you can find a complete
list of presenters as well as descriptions of the workshops
at http://www.narpa.org/conf_info_03/
workshopschedule03.html#W1.
Now, where was I? Oh yeah, back to uniting for social
justice! Friday was fun because my mother dropped by
to meet some of us at the hotel (actually I think she heard
the rumor that Quentin Tarantino was staying at the
Downtown Omni, which I guess was true since we later
raffled off his signature, collected by NARPA board member
Pat Risser, to a lucky NARPA attendee).
So my mother brought her NAMI card and wanted to
“talk” to my friends….. Kidding! (Although if anybody
could reform that organization, it would probably be her.)
Anyway, as I saw her speaking so intently with Linda
Morrison, Rene Andersen (who happens to be my boss),
Gail Hornstein and Vikki Gilbert, I realized the power
that supportive family members and friends could have
in our movement. I know her open mindedness and encouragement
have given me strength to become a better
leader. Peter Statsny later brought up this very important
point in his presentation, “In Mental Health, Good Ideas
are History.” What are we doing to unite ourselves with
our supportive and potentially supportive family and
friends? Can NAMI be reformed or is there some other
way to reach out to people like my mother in an organized
way? As our social climate continues to deteriorate,
we must seriously address these questions and find
ways to join our family and loved ones in the struggle for
our collective freedom.
At the lunch keynote Friday, Bob Kafka gave us food
for thought in his lecture entitled “Still Crazy After All
These Years: Visions of an Old Activist.” Bob continued
the theme of unity be challenging the audience to
continue to dialogue and form community with the greater
disability movement. He said the disability movement is
“less like a melting pot than a salad: carrots, vegetables,
lettuce, tomatoes, the occasional radish, but you put some
creamy dressing on it and, voila, it all comes together
quite nicely.” I have to say that my mixed greens never
tasted better than on that day.
There were an impressive array of workshops Friday,
and for the late troopers, there was a fascinating session
that night entitled Disability Activism: Images and Dialogue,
put on by Tom Olin, Jim Ward, Darby Penney, and
Ron Bassman. As usual NARPA was an excellent forum
for dialogue and networking, whether at workshops or in
the hallways or sitting at the hotel bar.
After another night of socializing, the early risers returned
for Beth Mitchell, J.D. and “Out of the Quiet
Room and On to the Pulpit.” The talk rang true for the
many of us who have been diagnosed and labeled and
effectively tossed out of the “normal” human race, only
to have fought to recover our voice and find our platform.
Saturday morning’s workshops were excellent, as usual,
and, not as usual, going right on according to schedule.
In fact, the entire conference to that point had been run-

ning on time, how strange! This was soon to change,
however, as Darby Penney and Peter Stastny, M.D. held
there audience hostage for “Recovered Lives: Suitcases
from a State Hospital Attic.” We were, of course, willing
hostages as Ms. Penney and Dr. Stastny led us through a
fascinating and powerful slideshow presentation piecing
together lost lives from remnants of suitcases left at
Willard State Hospital. They reminded us how important
it is to remember the rich human history of the thousands
and thousands of people who have had their lives
interrupted and then lost to institutions, left to be buried
in a numbered grave.
I remember the Saturday afternoon workshops particularly
well because I was a presenter with Vikki Gilbert
for “Freedom Center: How to Form a Local Support and
Activist Community.” Had I not been presenting, I would
probably have attended Gail Hornstein’s “Hearing Voices
Groups: An Innovative Alternative to Understanding and
Coping with ‘Hallucinations.’” This brings up a common
conference dilemma, at least at good conferences: what
do you do when there are several good workshops running
concurrently, which seems to happen all the time at
NARPA? Well, there’s the “run and grab piles of handouts”
method, the “stick to one workshop and take copious
notes after grilling your friends” method, and there’s
always the “I’m so overwhelmed I think I’m going back
to my room” method, if all else fails.
Anyway, here’s the part where I shamelessly use my
journalistic bias to talk about a wonderful workshop experience.
It happens to be my own workshop, but what
NARPA/NAPAS Dialog continued from page 4
between groups. For example, many ADAPT members
must rely on services to stay out of institutional settings.
NARPA members may (or may not) want services, but
only those that are self-directed. Laura Ziegler, NARPA
president, said that our movements are based on “identity
politics” and that better communication directed towards
identification of common goals will be necessary.
Some participants said that NAPAS should take the initiative
in such discussions. (STATUS: From subsequent
discussions, NAPAS representatives are aware of the tremendous
disparity of goals related to service delivery systems
and the potential for conflict that this can create. It
is not clear whether NAPAS is willing to take a lead role
in such a process.)
6.What does NARPA want? We agreed that a list of
NARPA suggestions for priorities for P&As should be
made available. Legislative proposals for involuntary outpatient
commitment are an ongoing concern as are lowered
criteria for inpatient commitment. (STATUS: The
NARPA board agreed to survey current and former Board
members about suggestions regarding areas of high concern
for our members. We are attempting to develop a
“matrix” for priorities with a caveat that we do not wish
to superimpose recommendations on autonomous groups.)
7.The original “PAIMI Project” included a component
of “cold calling” and asking for copies of civil commit-
can I say. Vikki and I’s presentation at NARPA Saturday
afternoon was the best experience I’ve ever had doing
this type of workshop. About twenty-five of us sat in a
circle and had an honest discussion about what it takes
to effectively organize on issues we care about while forming
a caring, supportive community at the same time.
Vikki and I shared our Freedom Center experiences in
addressing not only nuts and bolts organizing questions,
but also the “guts and soul” questions of organizing such
as: What do you do when ego’s clash? How do you deal
with conflict and crisis? Should there be a hierarchy?
How should you make decisions? There was an inspired
yet comfortable energy in that room Saturday, and everybody
left inspired to take whatever action they could,
realizing that every conversation we have, every interaction
we make, has power.
Saturday night we held the awards ceremony and raffle.
After the ceremonies, the night owls headed out again
for one last Austin night out.
Sunday morning, those of us who were left went to the
last couple workshops and said our goodbyes to our colleagues
and friends. For some of us, this conference is
the only time we see each other all year. On the plane
home to Massachusetts, I reflected on the conference
theme, “uniting for social justice.” I think that we took
great strides at NARPA 2003 toward accomplishing this.
As usual, NARPA sparked honest, uncensored dialogue.
With enough open dialogue comes fellowship, and through
fellowship, strength to change the world.
ment criteria. None of the three P&As contacted had
them immediately available, although P&A staff present
at today’s discussion indicated that they all had materials
on civil commitment for distribution. We agreed that
NARPA should create a suggested list of materials, which
should be available to callers. (STATUS: we have not yet
acted on this excellent suggestion.)
8.Everyone agreed that collaboration should be expanded
beyond NARPA and NAPAS to other advocacy
agencies. (STATUS: The NARPA board is in process of
organizing a bare-bones retreat to develop a long-term
plan for the organization. Discussion of collaboration
without compromising NARPA values will be a part of
the agenda at the retreat)
Other suggestions by individuals:
“Surveys and radio and TV ads should be part of the
priority-setting process for P&As.”
“The number one priority for collaborative efforts
should be opposition to coercive treatment.”
“The process of setting priorities for P&As should be
based on input from grass-roots organizations.”
‘Consider regional chapters of NARPA.”
“Many P&A employees should be consumers rather
than being dominated by former service providers.”
“NARPA feeds the soul; P&As should send their staff
to NARPA conferences.”
NARPA Right Tenet: Summer 2004 page 19

Loren Mosher continued from page 5
fort to human rights activists, is available at
www.moshersoteria.com/resig.htm
Robert Whitaker, author of the ground-breaking book
Mad in America, offered this remembrance: “Loren Mosher
never stopped fighting the good fight—for truth, for a
humane form of care for those struggling with their minds,
and against the corruption of psychiatry by pharmaceutical
money. He was an inspiration. I remember the first
time I met him at his home in San Diego, interviewing
him for a book I was writing... He rather relished his long
struggle of fighting for a different way in psychiatry—I
think he knew his was a life well lived. And in the Soteria
House, he has left an example of a better way that will
hopefully not be forgotten.”
Other remembrances are posted on the websites of the
Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (www.PsychRights.org)
and the Society for Laingian
Studies(www.LaingSociety.org) Many of Loren Mosher’s
articles, interviews, and speeches are available at the
Soteria Associates website (www.moshersoteria.com)
APA Resignation Letter
Loren Mosher
4 December 1998
To Rodrigo Munoz, M.D., President of the American
Psychiatric Association (APA)
Dear Rod,
After nearly three decades as a member it is with a
mixture of pleasure and disappointment that I submit this
letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association.
The major reason for this action is my belief
that I am actually resigning from the American Psychopharmacological
Association. Luckily, the organization's
true identity requires no change in the acronym.
Unfortunately, APA reflects, and reinforces, in word
and deed, our drug dependent society. Yet it helps wage
war on "drugs". "Dual diagnosis" clients are a major problem
for the field but not because of the "good" drugs we
prescribe. "Bad" ones are those that are obtained mostly
without a prescription. A Marxist would observe that
being a good capitalist organization, APA likes only those
drugs from which it can derive a profit -- directly or indirectly.
This is not a group for me. At this point in history,
in my view, psychiatry has been almost completely bought
out by the drug companies. The APA could not continue
without the pharmaceutical company support of meetings,
symposia, workshops, journal advertising, grand
rounds luncheons, unrestricted educational grants etc. etc.
Psychiatrists have become the minions of drug company
promotions. APA, of course, maintains that its independence
and autonomy are not compromised in this enmeshed
situation. Anyone with the least bit of common
sense attending the annual meeting would observe how
the drug company exhibits and "industry sponsored symposia"
draw crowds with their various enticements, while
the serious scientific sessions are barely attended. Psy-
NARPA Rights Tenet: Summer 2004 page 20
chiatric training reflects their influence as well: the most
important part of a resident's curriculum is the art and
quasi-science of dealing drugs, i.e., prescription writing.
These psychopharmacological limitations on our abilities
to be complete physicians also limit our intellectual
horizons. No longer do we seek to understand whole persons
in their social contexts -- rather we are there to realign
our patients' neurotransmitters. The problem is that
it is very difficult to have a relationship with a neurotransmitter
-- whatever its configuration. So, our guild organization
provides a rationale, by its neurobiological tunnel
vision, for keeping our distance from the molecule conglomerates
we have come to define as patients. We condone
and promote the widespread use and misuse of toxic
chemicals that we know have serious long term effects -
- tardive dyskinesia, tardive dementia and serious withdrawal
syndromes. So, do I want to be a drug company
patsy who treats molecules with their formulary? No,
thank you very much. It saddens me that after 35 years as
a psychiatrist I look forward to being dissociated from
such an organization. In no way does it represent my interests.
It is not within my capacities to buy into the current
biomedical-reductionistic model heralded by the psychiatric
leadership as once again marrying us to somatic
medicine. This is a matter of fashion, politics and, like
the pharmaceutical house connection, money.
In addition, APA has entered into an unholy alliance
with NAMI (I don't remember the members being asked
if they supported such an association) such that the two
organizations have adopted similar public belief systems
about the nature of madness. While professing itself the
"champion of their clients" the APA is supporting nonclients,
the parents, in their wishes to be in control, via
legally enforced dependency, of their mad/bad offspring:
NAMI with tacit APA approval, has set out a pro-neuroleptic
drug and easy commitment-institutionalization
agenda that violates the civil rights of their offspring. For
the most part we stand by and allow this fascistic agenda
to move forward. Their psychiatric god, Dr. E. Fuller
Torrey, is allowed to diagnose and recommend treatment
to those in the NAMI organization with whom he disagrees.
Clearly, a violation of medical ethics. Does APA
protest? Of course not, because he is speaking what APA
agrees with, but can't explicitly espouse. He is allowed to
be a foil; after all - he is no longer a member of APA.
(Slick work APA!) The shortsightedness of this marriage
of convenience between APA, NAMI, and the drug companies
(who gleefully support both groups because of their
shared pro-drug stance) is an abomination. I want no part
of a psychiatry of oppression and social control.
"Biologically based brain diseases" are certainly convenient
for families and practitioners alike. It is no-fault
insurance against personal responsibility. We are all just
helplessly caught up in a swirl of brain pathology for which
no one, except DNA, is responsible. Now, to begin with,
anything that has an anatomically defined specific brain
pathology becomes the province of neurology (syphilis
is an excellent example). So, to be consistent with this
"brain disease" view, all the major psychiatric disorders

would become the territory of our neurologic colleagues.
Without having surveyed them I believe they would eschew
responsibility for these problematic individuals.
However, consistency would demand our giving over
"biologic brain diseases" to them. The fact that there is
no evidence confirming the brain disease attribution is,
at this point, irrelevant. What we are dealing with here is
fashion, politics and money. This level of intellectual /
scientific dishonesty is just too egregious for me to continue
to support by my membership.
I view with no surprise that psychiatric training is being
systematically disavowed by American medical school
graduates. This must give us cause for concern about the
state of today's psychiatry. It must mean -- at least in part
that they view psychiatry as being very limited and
unchallenging. To me it seems clear that we are headed
toward a situation in which, except for academics, most
psychiatric practitioners will have no real, relationships -
- so vital to the healing process -- with the disturbed and
disturbing persons they treat. Their sole role will be that
of prescription writers -- ciphers in the guise of being
"helpers".
Finally, why must the APA pretend to know more than
it does? DSM IV is the fabrication upon which psychiatry
seeks acceptance by medicine in general. Insiders know
it is more a political than scientific document. To its credit
it says so -- although its brief apologia is rarely noted.
DSM IV has become a bible and a money making best
seller -- its major failings notwithstanding. It confines and
defines practice, some take it seriously, others more realistically.
It is the way to get paid. Diagnostic reliability is
easy to attain for research projects. The issue is what do
the categories tell us? Do they in fact accurately represent
the person with a problem? They don't, and can't,
because there are no external validating criteria for psychiatric
diagnoses. There is neither a blood test nor specific
anatomic lesions for any major psychiatric disorder.
So, where are we? APA as an organization has implicitly
(sometimes explicitly as well) bought into a theoretical
hoax. Is psychiatry a hoax -- as practiced today? Unfortunately,
the answer is mostly yes.
What do I recommend to the organization upon leaving
after experiencing three decades of its history?
1. To begin with, let us be ourselves. Stop taking on
unholy alliances without the members' permission.
2. Get real about science, politics and money. Label
each for what it is -- that is, be honest.
3.Get out of bed with NAMI and the drug companies.
APA should align itself, if one believes its rhetoric, with
the true consumer groups, i.e., the ex-patients, psychiatric
survivors etc.
4.Talk to the membership -- I can't be alone in my views.
We seem to have forgotten a basic principle -- the need
to be patient/client/consumer satisfaction oriented. I always
remember Manfred Bleuler's wisdom: "Loren, you
must never forget that you are your patient's employee."
In the end they will determine whether or not psychiatry
survives in the service marketplace.
Soteria Associates
Loren Mosher
Our mission is to provide evidence based alternative
(to the currently dominant biomedical model) explanatory
concepts and practices for the mental health community.
We offer educational materials, lectures, seminars,
consultations, support groups, advocacy, and expert
testimony. Our name has its origin in the Soteria
project. In a random assignment study the Soteria Project
demonstrated that acute psychosis could be treated successfully
in the context of caring human relationships
without the use of anti-psychotic drugs. Soteria is a Greek
word meaning salvation or deliverance.
The alternative evidence we present stands in contrast
to the currently dominant biomedical hypotheses about
the nature of major "mental illness". The alternative practice
we espouse is not based on the medical model that
treats nearly everything with psychotropic drugs. Rather,
our model is voluntary, need and problem focused, relationship
based, holistic, consumer (including families and
social networks) driven and recovery oriented.
While we may offer various drugs (including dietary
supplements and herbal remedies) they are viewed as
adjunctive and used in as low a dose as for the shortest
period of time that will allow evaluation of their usefulness.
There is no methodologically sound scientific data that
what is labeled "serious mental illness" is genetically determined,
is the result of identifiable biochemical abnormalities,
is associated with specific brain lesions or is due
to known etiologic agents. Basically, the current hypothesis
that "mental illness" is a "brain disease" is unsupported
by data, making its continued propagation as "true"
a myth or a delusion or a fraud. As such, we are in the
realm of religious dogma -- not science. Pity the nonbelievers,
for they shall be punished as deviants.
We do know that there are a number of psychosocial
factors associated with the development of problematic
behaviors: poverty; childhood sexual and /or physical
abuse; parental neglect; dysfunctional family behaviors
such as the inability to communicate clearly and cogently,
a pervasive family context of hostility and criticism, serious
addictions, parental emotional divorce, high levels
of stress secondary to chronic intra-familial conflict and
an absence of a supportive social network.
Fortunately, by being able to understand the relationship
of problematic behaviors to these psychosocial factors
the kinds of interventions most likely to ameliorate
their impact on those embedded in these psychonoxious
contexts can be defined and implemented. Basically, being
able to define the nature of a problem makes it possible
to develop a potential solution. For example, if family
conflict seems to be the main issue, it can be dealt with
in family therapy specifically focused on reduction of
conflict.
We believe that operating within a psychosocial paradigm
can avoid many of the problems associated with
NARPA Right Tenet: Summer 2004 page 21

the medicalization of what is labeled as "mental illness."
As we see it, the downside of the biomedical model of
treatment is:
A labeling process that does not allow for unlabeling
and hence, almost inevitably, produces marginalization
and discrimination
Institutionalization that disrupts family and social network
relationships and does little to help find meaningfulness
in relation to crises, further escalating anxiety and
perplexity in all those who care
The introduction of the current (but erroneous) biomedical
view of serious "mental illness" as being "incurable",
"chronic", and/or "deteriorating". Maintenance is
possible but-hope-so necessary for recovery, is nearly
impossible in this conceptualization
Medication, viewed by most as a required part of treatment,
may actually impede or prevent recovery by aborting
a potentially helpful psychological process that needs
to be related to and understood rather than suppressed.
It has, for example, been shown that the use of the antipsychotic
drugs, at least for what is called "schizophrenia",
has resulted in poorer long- term outcomes than
was the case prior to their use. In addition, suicide rates
have not been reduced as a result of the use of the antidepressant
medications
In violation of the Hippocratic dictum to "above all,
do no harm", excessive reliance on medications has produced
enormous rates of iatrogenic (doctor induced) diseases
such as tardive dyskinesia and dementia, neuroleptic
malignant syndrome, akathisia, suicidality, obesity,
reproductive difficulties, and addiction- to name but a
few. The model has induced a sense of powerlessness in
individuals, families and social networks because of its
ability to use coercion in the name of providing "medical
treatment.” Medicalization has produced a psychiatric/
drug company/hospital industrial complex that has such
power and control over theory and practice as to make a
change to a humanistic, psychosocial paradigm virtually
impossible.
Many mental health professionals -- especially psychiatrists
-- will attempt to invalidate and refute this argument
-- while defending the status quo -- by referring to
the "miraculous" effects of drug treatment. In addition
they will contend that clinical practice is actually based
on a "biopsychosocial model." It takes a very serious case
of denial not to see what is before your eyes: Mental health
treatment for the so-called "seriously mentally ill" is centered
on medication with lip service at best being given
to the "psychosocial" part of the model.
Consider these questions: How many adult mental
health consumers in the mental health systems you know
about are not being prescribed medications? What percentages
are receiving regular psychotherapy of any type?
How many are regularly able to access peer support
groups? Is client input into program planning and development
real -- or is it just tokenism? Are there client run
programs? Are the expressed needs of clients taken seriously?
We believe the alternative voice provided by Soteria
NARPA Rights Tenet: Summer 2004 page 22
Associates and other similar organizations that provide
accurate information (that is, with no conflict of interest)
and education about the realities of today's mental
health context -- via critical examination of current research
on mental illness -- is much needed. Without critical
dissident voices the real recovery oriented needs of
persons with complex and recalcitrant problems will never
be addressed.
There are many, many consumers and families coming
to the realization that today's treatment landscape is desolate
of any real understanding, help or hope for them.
Soteria Associates hears from these dissatisfied persons
daily by phone, email and regular mail. Among the many
issues they raise, the following are common themes:
They inquire whether there are any treatment centers
that do not use psychotropic drugs routinely -- at present
there are five in the entire country.
They ask to be withdrawn from psychotropic drugs
because of the terrifying and painful effects they have
experienced from them -- but there are no doctors or facilities
willing to take on the arduous task of withdrawing
these drugs. Many report that the drugs have not really
helped them -- only caused them problems. Many of
those who have tried to withdraw experienced very frightening
and unpleasant withdrawal reactions -- often of
sufficient magnitude to make them restart the medication.
They seek to understand and deal more effectively with
their experiences but can not find persons willing to join
with them in this difficult collaborative endeavor. Basically,
no one wants to hear them out. Psychiatric residents
(trainees) are taught that you "can't talk to disease"
(ie, "schizophrenia" and severe depression or mania).
They wonder why it is so difficult to find decent affordable
housing with interpersonal support, if needed,
in such an affluent country.
They seek almost any alternative way of dealing with
their problems but there are few professionals willing to
offer anything outside the current dogma. Even asking,
or questioning, may be viewed as non-compliance, further
damaging their reputations.
The list goes on, but these are representative examples
of what is wrong with the system. We find ourselves
empathizing with their powerlessness and hopelessness.
It would be delusional to believe that Soteria Associates,
a very small voice in a vast wilderness, can, by itself,
address these needs. What is required is the formation
of many communities of persons (and their friends)
who have been failed by biomedically focused mental
health treatment, the formation of groups demanding an
alternative: Interventions that are humane, focused on
understanding the meaningfulness of subjective experience,
and on filling legitimate needs is what we espouse.
Soteria Associates will be glad to be facilitators in so far
as our resources allow.
However, the system will not change without the mobilization
of many voices of angry, disaffected consumers
-- and those who care about them -- collectively directed
to changing the status quo and replacing those
perpetuating it.

Crazy Women
Madness, Myth, and Metaphor
Featuring
Renee Bostick, Judi Chamberlin,
Kate Millett, Rae Unzicker
Pat Weisser, and Sally Zinman
Six of the movement’s most well known and articulate
women have a moving, intelligent, and wide-ranging
discussion on psychiatry, the medical model, personal
madness, organizing for change, consciousness, friendship
and much, much more.
We recommend this tape for protection and advocacy agencies, departments of mental health, mental
health centers, consumer/ex-patient groups, activist organizations, and schools and colleges.
60-minute videotape (VHS Format)
$60.00 (includes postage)
All proceeds go to benefit the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy
I enclose a check for $60,
payable to: NARPA
Please send to
NARPA, c/o Anne Krauss
P.O. Box 1712
Port Washington, NY
11050-1712
Yes! Please send my copy of CRAZY WOMEN.
Name
_________________________________________
Organization ____________________________________
Street __________________________________________
City ______________________ State ____ Zip _________
60-minute videotape (VHS format) $60.00 (includes postage and handling)
NARPA Right Tenet: Summer 2004 page 23

Three Honored with NARPA 2003 Awards
NARPA presented the following awards at its 2003 annual
conference:
The Bill Johnson Award is given by the NARPA
President for service to NARPA in the past year. The
winner was Darby Penney of New York, NARPA board
member and incoming vice-president, for her work
coordinating the 2003 Conference.
National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy
PO Box 1712
Port Washington, NY 11050-1712
The Rae Unzicker Award is chosen by past winners of
this award and is given for long-term advocacy service.
The winner was Laura Ziegler of Vermont, NARPA board
member and incoming president, for her decades of
determined activism and advocacy in Vermont, New York,
and across the nation.
The Pearl Johnson Scholarship, established in 2003 in
memory of long-time board member Pearl Johnson, is
chosen by the Board. It is given to a person of color who
is a consumer/ survivor/ex-patient, who couldn’t otherwise
attend the NARPA conference, and who can make a
contribution to NARPA’s work. Thomas Gomez of
Washington, D.C., an activist and independent radio
producer, received the first Pearl Johnson Scholarship to
attend NARPA 2003.
Thomas Gomez, Washington, D.C., winner of the
Pearl Johnson Scholarship. Photo by Tom Olin
Non-Profit Organization
U.S. Postage Paid
Permit 210
Port Washington, NY