Vol. 4 No.1 - Psychiatric Survivor Archives of Toronto

Summer 1983Vol. 4 No.1$1.75

:-""_:~_:!._,!:L,., :.: JI, ,., ,.: :.: ,.: :.: •• , ,.: :- ,.: :.' :.: :-: :-: :-:-: :- :-: :.: :.: :-:. : :-: :.: :-: :.: :-: JIc: :.: :.: :-:_:!-:.:.' :-::•.,.:..,'-::.::.:PHOENIXRISINGAvailable now at astore near you:WESTCity Limits Bookstore, CalgaryCommon Woman Books, EdmontonMike's News Ltd., EdmontonOctopus Books, 4th Ave., VancouverOctopus Books, Comm. Drive, VancouverTrans-Global Enterprises Ltd., VancouverONTARIOA & S Smoke Shop, TorontoThe Beaches Book Shop, TorontoBob Miller Bookroom, TorontoThe Book Cellar, Adelaide St., TorontoThe Book Cellar, Cover to Cover Inc., TorontoThe Book Cellar, Yorkville, TorontoBook City, TorontoThe Book Nook, TorontoBook Villa, HamiltonBookworld, TorontoThe Bookshelf, GuelphCarleton University Bookstore, OttawaCivic Books, OshawaClassic Bookshops No. 55, TorontoDavid Beard's Bookshop, TorontoFocus Books & Art, TorontoInsight Books, MississaugaInternational News, TorontoLichtman's News & Books, Adelaide St., TorontoLichtman's News & Books, WillowdaleLichtman's News & Books, Yonge St., TorontoLonghouse Book Shop, TorontoMags and Fags, OttawaMcMaster University Bookstore, HamiltonMulti Mag, LondonNational News, OttawaNews Depot, LondonNorman Bethune Bookstore, TorontoOctopus Books, OttawaPages, TorontoPhantasy Books, TorontoReaders Den Inc., TorontoSCM Bookroom, TorontoTextbook Store, University of TorontoThis Ain't the Rosedale Library, TorontoThunder Bay Co-op Bookstore Inc.Toronto Women's Bookstore, TorontoTidas News, WindsorTrent University Bookstore, PeterboroughUniversity of Toronto BookroomUniversity of Windsor BookroomWorld's Biggest Bookstore, TorontoYork University Bookstore, TorontoQUEBECBenjamin News, MontrealDouble Hook Bookshop, MontrealInternational News, MontrealEASTAtlantic News, HalifaxA Pair of Trindles Bookstore, HalifaxReadmore Bookstore Stockroom, HalifaxUniversity of New Brunswick Bookstore,FrederictonUSABob's (in Newtown), ChicagoBob's (in Roger's Park), ChicagoIf you know of a bookstore that would beinterested in carrying Phoenix Rising and isnot on this list, please urge them to write usat:Box 7251, Station 'A'Toronto, OntarioM5W lX9

pboeOlXThrough the fireI

2 Phoenix RisingEncoreThe PHOENIX RISING Collective would like to thank all thosepeople who responded to the request for contributions in our Springissue: we are very grateful for all the sums that readers have so generouslysent.We are still alive, but our funding is coming to a definite end, and inorder to survive we must look elsewhere. That is why we are appealing,again, to you, our readers.Meanwhile, if not our survival at least our ability to flourish andgrow, to reach people so far unaware of our issues and to tap materialso far inaccessible to us-depends entirely on forces beyond our control.Those forces are-together-time and money. And anyone whocan help with either will be most gratefully received.

Phoenix Rising 3aJRf"teDONOTE TO READERS: Phoenix Risingassumes any correspondence sent to usmay be reprinted in our leeters sectionunless otherwise specified. Please tell usif you would like your name withheld ifyour letter is printed. Letters 'withoutnames and addresses will not be accepted.** * *Have just finished reading yourWinter 1983 issue. Terrific! Everything itshould be. I'm impressed.-There are many relative issuesblanketing ex-inmates of prisons as wellas nuthouses. My specific interest for 10years has been designing a rehabilitationprogram for ex-prisoners.For instance, the term "sociopath" isthe flip side of schizophrenia when thepsychologists (as well as psychiatrists)use labeling criteria for convictedprisoners. I would love to see yourmagazine take that term on. Szasz'spublications have shed light here too.All convicted prisoners in WashingtonState Dept. of Correction wear thislabel.My personal experience has includedover 25 years inside various jails, reformschools, prisons and nuthousesthroughout the U.S.A. I've been ECTedin Louisiana (retribution for agitating awork strike via "cut heel strings" of 600prisoners where 11 ringleaders werehauled to the nuthouse for "selfmutilation"and had our "pushy Yankeeattitudes" leaned on by the thunderboltmambo machine.I've watched them kill a man namedGrigsby with ECT at San Quentin prisonin California during 1954. They hid hisbody in the crapper, for several"inspectors from the capital" were inthe building inspecting.I was there in the days of DoctorSchmidt when "treatment" and mentalhealth programs became popular. Grantswere available for ever common shysterbug doctors who, for lack of income,hustled the penal system. I watched theThorazine fog at its birth there. I'vewatched electic shock in "3rd Psych(a ward on the 3rd floor of San QuentinHospital) and a room filled (always)with insulin shock comatosed prisoners;"4th Psych" (a ward on the 4th floor.)There were always fifty or sixty braincell wars being waged.I've watched an MD at this prison,Wash. State Penitentiary, develop aninterest in ECT and use it almost as ahobby. I've watched many experimentalprograms; from LSD, sterilization, andthe like, to Bertillion-like measuring ofphysical features.It's been as though some twisted psychologicalgenius was at workdeveloping a mental abyss to destroymen's minds collectively. It's anabsurdity. All prisons are of the samemold. There are no good prisons.Prisons create crime just as an insaneworld creates crazy folks, not tomention what evil results from mentalinstitutions. We are terminal as a race ifsomething is not changed.Hooray for Phoenix Rising from theashes. Good luck in your work.a Walla Walla PrisonerWalla Walla, WashingtonIn the article about me in yourSpring issue, I was pleased that youemphasized my interest in the CATscan technique of revealing ECT braindamage, for I believe this is the trumpcard that is held by the critics of ECT.However, I'd like to correct a misquotationthat was carried over fromthe Saturday Evening Post.Actually I think it would be quite impracticalto CAT scan patients beforethey receive ECT. I can't imaginedoctors saying to patients, "We wantto measure your brain size so that wecan find out whether ECT shrinks it."Fortunately, no such cumbersome approachis necessary for testing whetherECT shrinks the brain. The statisticallyadequate method would be to CATscan a group of persons who have hadECT at some time in the past (at least ayear earlier) and compare the resultswith what is normal for their ages.The point of waiting a year is thatthe initial effect of ECT is to cause thebrain to swell. To see the shrinkagecaused by ECT, one has to allow timefor the swelling to go down and thedead cells to be carried away by theblood.Marilyn RiceArlington,*Virginia* * *David Petterson's letter (Vol. 3, No.4)struck home. The negative stories ofhorror get to be too much until someonesays, "Hey, that's me!" In our case thevictim is our son. Years of state "medications"have damaged the temperaturecontrol and appetite mechanisms of hisbrain and left him with other officiallydocumented damage from Thorazine.A California legislator, Dr. Filanteinstigated a therapeutic review afternine! hellish years of our naive, morelocal efforts to stop the Thorazine ­400 to 900 mgs. daily! Multiple drugswere also used for a cruel time untilProlixin put Chris in an acute ward,near death. (The minister met us at thehospital- Porterville, 1978 - thoughwe had been informed of an infectedscratch only.) Chris transferred North in1979.Despite the review's recommendationsover a year ago to dropThorazine, it continues - though atleast at a lower dose, because the help ofmegavitamins for Chris was finally recognized.(In 1974 a pyridoxine ­treatable enzymatic defect was found.On the whole, the information wasignored, having been ordered fromoutside by us and not duplicated againby either of the two hospitals. We weremaybe too eager to pay for more sophisticatedtests or to put them in touch withan expert.)We tried very hard to carry out somegood plans for our son's freedomrecently. In spite of his legal right at thetime to be released within 3 days of hisasking out, plans were blocked anddrugs upped. We are now asking for atransfer to a better ward. The answer isChris won't "co-operate"; so againtransfer is denied at Sonoma StateHospital.One thing that has come out of this.

4 Phoenix Risingas far as we can see, is that the more wefIght for him at the hospital level, themore they put the screws to Chris andparents like us to stop us. Being"model citizen" is what counts in andabout prisons and psychiatric hospitals.So what gets people out? - Publicpressure! With a sane and steady voiceyour Phoenix Rises on behalf of thosewho care, those who want to get strongenough to stop the oppression. And wethank you.Pat Holderman(for) Mr. & Mrs. J. HoldermanNorth Fork, CaliforniaP .S. The thing that is different inChris Holderman's case from DavidPetterson's is the matter of abilities.Chris has a low I.Q., Mr. Petterson's ishigh - something that is neither herenor there when reading of their torture.The psychiatrized retarded needadvocacy too, all the more since theycan't ask•for it.• •Since its fIrst issue, I have followedthe course of this magazine with greatinterest. It fIlls a great need, which mustbe evident to all those who have been onthe receiving end of traditional psychiatric"help." I have found yourarticles, in particular, to be most lucidand to the point.Unfortunately, it and your collectiveseem to be rather central-Canada-based.This seems particularly sad to me, sinceI live on the east coast and I am notaware that the practice of psychiatry isany more enlightened or better here thanit is elsewhere in Canada. Ergo, (it goeswithout saying) many people could usethe support of a group like On OurOwn, as well, perhaps, as a regular voiceemanating from it.I would really love to talk to youabout this and about the possibility ofmy helping out in some way, albeitanonymously. I fInd myself feelingguilty about not making more obviousefforts to help others, and to warnagainst the dangers of prescriptive psychiatry,as opposed to preventive psychiatry,(which, I suppose, would bededicated to its own self-destruction). Itseems so obvious that systems of therapycould help people so very much more ifthey were to change in radical,humanistic, interactive ways.Anonymous,Wolfville, NovaScotia•••My renewal is anything but a sign ofsupport for everything you're doing.Some of the things you are doing areresulting in harm to mental patients.Already the seriously mentally ill can'tget treatment at all, not entirely due toyour efforts but partly so: a majorproblem· is governments taking theopportunity presented by thecontroversy, not to provide treatmentat all. As a result of the diffIculties andpersonal dangers, I for one after twentyfive years being a psychiatrist, can'tand don't treat the severely mentally ill.You are quite wrong about ECT. Inmany cases the risks are far outstrippedby the benefits and I reckon I've savedsome thousand lives with it includingmy own, when I was suicidally depressed.I has a rationale in terms of brainneuro-transmitter dynamics which I'dbe happy to explain to you, if youaccepted contrary opinions and material.Of course strong tranquillizers, restraints,ECT, certification have theirdrawbacks but without them, I for one•would not be preparedto try to helpthe severely mentally ill, nor wouldyou, I believe, if you really had to dealwith the reality of it.The result is already with us. Thesepeople with severe mental illness arenow being neglected and not treated, allover North America. You, PresidentReagan, Professor Szasz, the Scientologistshave a lot to answer for in termsof decreasing humanity, and increasingignorance and fear, in spite perhaps ofyour intent and public. stance.Lawrence Kotkas, M.D., D.P.M.,Lethbridge, Alberta.* ** *On the contrary, Dr. Kotkas, we doindeed "accept contrary opinion andmaterial;" by all means explain to usyour theory of the "neuro-transmitterdynamics" of ECT. Only we hope thatyour explanation also includes how"the risks (of ECT) are far outstrippedby the benefits" forthis is where wereally differ from you and, without this-we can't agree.As for your further allegation thatwe have contributed to the growingtrend to deny all help to the "mentallyill" -we believe that everything wehave written speaks for itself-and inprotest. No, we can't say that we areresponsible for any "opportunities"that President Reagan or his governmentor any government may take. Ifwe could, they wouldn't be so foolish,•Collectivewe hope.*The PHOENIX* * *I was recently incarceratea on a psychiatricward, here in Montreal. LuckilyI'm released now. I refused "Melaril"and all the rest of it-theythe issue.didn't force"Phoenix Rising" kept me going:kept me from going mad. As I saw oldpeople (an old man for example whohad been on the word for 3 years!)fright coursed through me-also everytime I passed the "treatment??" roomThey told us where to sit-every day itwas a different place-and what andwhen to eat. As for facilties-nil, andthe "ward" (if you can call it that)never got any sun. The rooms were thesize (this is not an exaggeration) of solitaryconfinement on death row. Yougot claustrophobia just entering it, andthey placed two of us in each "room."Anyways, as for your magazine, it islong overdue, and great!!I still don't feel really well ... but atleast I'm no longer stuck in a dingynarrow ward that smells of feces andreeks of hopelessness.Leora RothMontreal, Quebec.* * * *WREC NeedsYour HelpWomen's Counselling Referral &Education Centre has been serving women'sneeds in Toronto for the pasteight years. You may have been referredto a therapist or a self-help group by us.NOW WE NEED YOUR HELP.WCREC is having a funding crisis. Wewant to maintain the high quality serviceyou've come to expect from us.We're asking individuals to becomemembers of WCREC. You may alreadybe a member, or have written a letter ofsupport for us, and we really appreciatethat. Support us again. Supportingmembership is $50, associate membershipis $10. With your help we cancontinue our distress counselling service,find and interview therapists forlow income women, and start self helpgroups again.Keep WCREC going! Become amember today.

6 Phoenix RisingANDREW ZAMORA:A Heart of Glass?Andrew Zamora died on August 17th, 1981, at the age of17. Andrew is remembered by those who knew him as an in.telligent, sensitive kid who had the kinds of problems facedby thousands of other young people growing up in thesuburbs: conflicts with parents, anxiety over dating and sex,growing pains. Andrew was also frustrated, and sometimeshe would take out these frustrations on his family.Georgette and Gregory Zamora were troubled and hurt byAndrew's behavior, but they did not feel that psychiatry wasthe answer to their son's problems. When Andrew's behaviorbecame intolerable, and his parents' pain too great to bear,psychiatric hospitalization was the last resort. Even so, hisfamily signed him out of New York Hospital against medicaladvice in 1979 because they wanted him home. On December24, 1-980,Andrew, dressed only in pyjamas, escaped fromSouth Beach and ran miles in the freezing cold to spendChristmas Eve with them at home. They even lied to thehospital so that the police wouldn't pick him up. They werealso very critical of the care he received there. But as criticalas they were, they never could have believed that their sonwould die.Andrew had been admitted to South Beach twice: the firsttime for four months, and the second - his last - for onlythree days. The first time he was released, Mr. and Mrs.Zamora signed a form promising South Beach that theywould bring Andrew in for regular Prolix in injections at anoutpatient clinic, but Andrew refused "aftercare" and hisparents never pushed him to go.Andrew's relationship with his parents could be describedas one of escalating suspicion and hostility. In December 1980Andrew was put in South Beach by the courts after hestabbed his father in the chest with two knives, creating awound that took 20 stitches to close.According to the hospital records, around the first week ofAugust 1981, Andrew wandered around aimlessly, couldn'tsleep, and told people that others were out to harm him. Onthe 15th his parents took him to 81. Vincent's Hospitalemergency room, stating that they intended to place him inthe DeSisto School, a residential program in Florida foryoung people with emotional problems. Andrew was upsetbecause he didn't want to go to the DeSisto School. Hisparents thought that he would calm down after a few days atSouth Beach, and then they would send him to Florida intime for the fall term.LabeIled as having an "acute paranoid disorder," he wastaken away to South Beach and given 10 mg. of Navanetwice a day and 5 mg. of the same drug "when needed foragitation." On August 16, he got a shot of Thorazine, 50mg. for "a,ggressiveness and threatening action towards the. staff," and was put in a bed net restraint from 4:30 to 8 p.m.On August 17, the day he died, Andrew was again put ina bednet restraint at about noon. Between 1 and 1:30 p.m.the staff psychiatrist evaluated him and wrote a restraintorder for 12:15 to 2:15 p.m., which he renewed from 2:15 to4: 15 p.m. In a separate note the rationale for restraint waswritten: "in bed net for agitation, paranoid violent towardstaff." Andrew Zamora was then placed in a room near thenursing station with three others where he could be observedand checked every 15 minutes in accordance with SouthBeach policy.Another thing happened on August 17th. Andrew wastaken off Navane, and "antipsychotic," and put on aprogram of "rapid neuroleptization.,,(l). The drug to be usedwas Serentil, another powerful tranquilizer. In Andrew'scase, this program of "rapid neuroleptization" called for aninjection of Serentil, 25 mg~ every hour for six hours or until"sedated." An order for Benadryl, prn (when needed) waswritten to counteract possible side effects of the Serentil.Another order of Serentil was written, this one by mouth,but Andrew died before this "maintenance dose" could beadministered.The first two shots of Serentil, 25 mg, were given at 1:45and 2:45p.m. At 3:45, while in a bed net restraint, Andrewwas given a third shot of SerentiI, 25 mg., and a shot ofBenadryl, 50 mg. for "extrapyramidal symptoms.,,(2) Hisvital signs were taken: pulse rate was 100, respiration 24,blood pressure 110170. (Normal pulse range is between 60and 80; normal respiration is 16-18.)At 4 p.m. Andrew Zamora, still in restraint, was describedby a therapy aide as being "agitated, yelling ... remainsdanger to self and others." At 4: 13, One of his roommatescomplained to staff that Andrew was verbaIly abusing him.(The roommate denied this when Georgette Zamora spoke tohim after Andrew's death.)'3) The aide told the roommate toget out of the bedroom,down on the bed.but he returned anyway and layAt 4:30 p.m., an aide went into Andrew's room and notedthat his pupils were dilated, he had no pulse, had foamaround his mouth, and his face and nails were blue.An attempt was made to revive him with CPR. A CPRcode team was caUed, and his limp body was finally removedfrom the bednet. Two items necessary for emergencies of thissort were either broken or too far away. The suction machinefrom the treatment room would not work, and the "crashcart" was located on another floor, and had to be broughtdown.Two safety officers(4) quickly fetched a second suctionmachine, but the physician had to remove its tubing for useas a tourniquet to tie around Andrew's arm. The crash carthad no tourniquet, and the doctor needed one immediatelyso he could find a vein for an intravenous.AIl attempts at reviving Andrew Zamora failed. He waspronounced dead between 4:45 and 5 p.m., a victim of toorapid neuroleptization, and too slow resuscitation.The medical examiner's office had little difficulty in pinpointingthe cause of death. It was myocarditis, an inflammationof the heart muscle. During the autopsy a focalpetechial hemorrhage of the epicardium was found. This isusually an indication of myocarditis, a disease which canoccur after certain infections. No such predisposing conditionwas identified, however.Georgette and Gregory Zamora don't believe the autopsy.Nor do they support Mental Health Commissioner Prevost'scontention that the hospital "did nothing wrong. ,,(5) Theyinsist that Andrew was violently aUergic to all phenothiazinesand other major tranquilizers, and that the myocarditis was aresult of the drugging. They are also angry at theCommission's report because it made Andrew look like apsychopath. It also never mentioned the fact that theCoroner found hemorrhaging and severe congestion in sixorgans other than the heart. The Zamoras are suing the state.Why didn't South Beach know about Andrew's heartcondition? Weren't they supposed to give him a medicalcheck-up and blood tests? Well, they did. In fact, the bloodtests were ready AFTER Andrew Zamora died. And, sureenough, they showed abnormal serum electrolytes andelevated blood enzymes at levels consistent with cardiacpathology.The Mental Hygiene Medical Review Board wrote that thedrugs given may very well have increased the stress on hisdamaged heart, but they added that the DOCTORS weRENOT AT FAULT because they didn't know about hiscondition.

Phoenix Rising 7Andrew Zamora's death might well have been prevented ifdrugs were withheld until the results of the blood tests wereready. And he might also be alive today if the resuscitationequipment were nearby, complete, and in proper workingorder.A MESSAGE TO THE CLASS OF '82IF YOU LIKED SCHOOL ...WES DORSEY: Case PendingCharles Wesley Dorsey is the latest victim of psychiatry atSouth Beach. He died on October 27, 1982, at the age of 27,after being placed in a straitjacket and given sodiumamytal.In an article published by the Staten Island Advance, (6) alocal newspaper, Wes, as he was called, was described by acousin as a "quiet, gentle man" who appeared in goodhealth around the time he was admitted to South Beach PsychiatricCenter. This same cousin reported that Wes had beenmaking progress in combatting a "mild mental illness," butthat other members of his family had complained to SouthBeach personnel about "overmedication."According to hospital sources, Wes was put in a straitjacketafter he became "agitated" and struck a "therapist"(who was taken to Staten Island Hospital, treated, and laterreleased). Immediately after being placed in restraint, Weswas given a shot of sodium amy tal. According to twoanonymous staff members who spoke to the Staten IslandAdvance, Wes then began to hyperventilate. He died atSouth Beach ten minutes later, and was officially pronounceddead at Staten Island Hospital.Only a day later, New York State Mental Health CommissionerJames Prevost announced that he would convenean "independent panel of medical experts" to investigateWes Dorsey's death.(?) The panel will include an internist, apathologist, and psychiatrist from outside the state mentalhealth system.The medical examiner's office has completed an autopsywhich as of this writing (February, 1983) has not beenreleased. A routine police report has been prepared, butno one has yet been charged with any wrongdoing.Additionally, the Office of Mental Health and theCommission for the Quality of Care for the MentallyDisabled will also investigate Wes' death.Wes' parents, Charles and Minnie Dorsey, still do notknow why their son died. The Dorseys and their attorneys,Peter Cooper and Steve Bamundo,(8) have appeared ontelevision to try to pressure the medical examiner to releasethe autopsy. They are still waiting. And so are thecommissions, panels, and bureaus whose task it is toinvestigate psychiatric death.Earlier, in October 1982, the Health and Human ServicesAdministration of the federal government announced thatSouth Beach Psychiatric Center had become ineligible for $5million in Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements due to"administrative deficiencies" uncovered by federalinvestigators after the first three of the South Beach Fourdied. (9) Some of the deficiencies listed were inadequatecontrols over drugs and the use of "unqualified individuals"to run some of the units. Despite the ample time SouthBeach had to remedy these problems - over a year - theyfailed to do so. Five million dollars is one-fifth of SouthBeach's operating budget for a year. On November 5th,1982, the cutoff became official(1O),but the center continuedto get payments for another 30 days to cover the cost of"patients" admitted before the cutoff was announced. WesDorsey died only a week before the funds were cut off.... YOU 'LL LOVE WORKWORK: A PRISON OF MEASUREDTlMESouth Beach Psychiatric Center, the "jewel of the statepsychiatric system," has one major flaw: the public knowswhat goes on there. They know about the forced druggings,the straitjackets and bed nettings, the heat, and the callousneglect. This is the legacy of the South Beach Four - publicawareness. But how long will it take for the public to forget?ALLEN S.: The Martyr ofManhattan StateThe story of Allen S.(II) makes the previous seven pale bycomparison. Allen wasn't "victimized" or "abused." He wasMURDERED. The most remarkable thing is not that hedied, but that it took a variety of things to kill him. An"average" individual would not have survived what Allendid for so long. Allen was extraordinary in this regard.Allen's story begins with a degree in English literaturefrom a college in the City University of New York, and jobat the New York Public Library from 1967-1973. Not toomuch else has been revealed about his background exceptthat he was never married and that he had a psychiatrichistory stretching back to 1965. From 1972-1978 he was anoutpatient at the Vanderbilt Clinic of the Columbia­Presbyterian Medical Center. In June 1978 he was admittedto the Psychiatric Institute of Columbia-Presbyterian afterbeing treated for self-inflicted stab wounds in the chest.

8 Phoenix Rising.-------On September 13, 1978, Allen was transferred to ManhattanPsychiatric Center, a state facility, with an admissionnote that stated that his "assaultiveness and violence to selfand others was so violent and unpredictable, that long termhospitalization was recommended." He was labelled a "paranoids

estimated body temperaturetime of his death.of 109 degrees or higher at theCoverupThe Commission encountered conflicting testimony fromward personnel on whether a neck hold was ever used. AideX and his brother, also a hospital employee, have stuck totheir story that a neck hold was never used. The unitmanager and ward charge at first failed to report the neckhold, but then later did. Subsequently, the ward charge hasreturned to his original story that the hold never occurred.He states:"The Unit Manager had told me that everything was goingto fall on us and that they may send the police, and he toldme that this is what we have to say to protect ourselves. Hesaid, we must tell the truth about Employee X having hishands around the patient's neck and hitting the patient.I was stunned that any employee would make a statementlike that about another employee.BECAUSE THE UNIT MANAGERI WAS STUNNEDWOULD TELL ONANOTHER EMPLOYEE, NOT BECAUSE OF THETRUTH OF WHAT HE WAS SAYING. I WOULDRATHER LIE THAN TELL ON ANY OTHEREMPLOYEE, but I was brainwashed into gging along."(Emphasis added).As of this writing, no prosecution of Aide X or anyoneelse has commenced. The disciplinary proceeding againstAide X was suspended pending completion of the DistrictAttorney's investigation. Aide X was reassigned to a positioninvolving minimal patient contact. He then returned to hisnative Puerto.Rico. (12)Concluded the Commission: "The staff charged withAllen's care on the day of his death evinced a callous indifferencetowards his life and safety." And, Allen S. "was thevictim of indifferent medical and nursing care and grossphysical abuse which may have contributed to his death."CONCLUSIONThis review is preliminary. Most of the information wasextracted from the reports written by the Commission onQuality of Care, newspaper articles, and personalcommunications with parents of the dead. As I dug deeperinto the stories of each of these individuals, I discovered thatthe Commission's reports concealed even more than theyrevealed. While the reports at first appeared very damaging,the real facts behind these cases are even more shocking.Despite the incomplete nature of my investigations, it ispossible to make the following tentative conclusions.First, drugs are a major ingredient in psychiatric deaths.Sometimes drugs alone are sufficient to cause death. Often,other factors have to be added such as heat, pneumonia,assault, restraint, etc. When drugs are combined, the effectson the body may be unpredictable. The same is true fordrugs plus the other factors. One or more of these factorscombined with drugs can have unpredictable effects.Second, the medical examiner's report is generally writtenin such a way that other doctors are not implicated inanyone's death. Death is attributed to natural causeswhenever possible. When this is not possible, death is"unexplained." Never is the cause of death listed as"iatrogenic" (physician-caused) or "overmedication." Drs.Gross and Zugi12e have made few friends in the psychiatricprofession by calling attention to heat-related andpneumonia-related killings.Third, psychiatric death is routine murder. Officialagencies charged with investigating deaths at South Beach,Manhattan State, Creedmoor and other state facilities havetried to paint a picture of "abuses" of the system. If itweren't for those "bad apples," everything would bewonderful. But death is not an abuse. It is business as usualfor state hospital employees. And South Beach is not special.Routine murder and institutional psychiatry are inseparable.Finally, the murder of psychiatric inmates is not a crime. ItPhoenix Rising 9is not even a misdemeanor in New York State. Employeeswho murder are transferred. Psychiatrists who murder arelectured. Very rarely they may be demoted. The DistrictAttorney always investigates. The families of the dead visitthe offices of attorneys, and they are told the same story. Wedon't want this case, but we'll take it if you pay our expensesalong the way. The Zamoras and the Ruggeris have the. samelawyer. They have filed suits against the state. Mrs. Singer,while reluctant to talk about her daughter's death, is believedto have retained counsel, and the Dorseys, only weeks aftertheir son was killed, sought legal help. Georgette Zamora hasbeen especially active in attracting the attention of the newsmedia to her son's death. Public television is currentlyworking with her on a documentary on South Beach.The file on psychiatric death in New York State is notclosed. There are others whose stories have yet to be told:"Jason Price," "Leonard Gray," "Rita Finn," "JeffreyRoland," "Mark Monroe," "Peter Breen" ... The list goeson and on, and the death count mounts. A steady and logicalprogression of death packaged and sanitized by the state.Death by psychiatry.NOTES(1) Rapid Neuroleptization - A term used to describe theadministration of very high doses of "antipsychotic" drugsover a one or two-day period, or longer until a peak level ofdrugs in the blood is reached. Gradually, the dose is loweredto a "maintenance" level.(2) Extrapyramidal Symptoms - These may include any orall of the following: muscular rigidity, tremors, drooling,shuffling (Thorazine shuffle, parkinsonism), restlessness(akathisia), motor inertia (akinesia), and many other neurologicaldisturbances. Caused by neuroleptic drugs.(3) Radio interview with 'Georgette Zamora and FrancesRuggeri, The Madness Network, WBAI-FM,Personal communication with Mrs. Zamora.Dec. 24, 1982;(4) Safety Officers - State-employed security force whopolice New York State psychiatric centers.(5) Bruce Alpert, "Internal Probes Clear South Beach inYouth's Death," Staten Island Advance, Sept. 12, 1981, np.(6) Bruce Alpert, "Coroner Probes Psych Center Death."Staten Island Advance, Oct. 29, 1982, pp. AI, A14.(7) Anemona Hartocollis, "Panel to Probe Psych CenterDeath," Staten Island Advance, Oct. 30, 1982, pp. AI, A14;"A State Panel to Study Death of Psychiatric Patient onSI," New York Times, Oct. 31, 1982, p. 45.(8) Radio interview with Peter Cooper, The MadnessNetwork, WBAI-FM, January 12, 1983.(9) Joseph B. Treaster, "Mental Patient Dies on Staten I.After a Sedation," New York Times, Oct. 29, 1982, p. 3;Bruce Alpert, "Psychiatric Center $$ Cut," Staten IslandAdvance, Oct. 15, 1982, pp. AI, A4.(10) "Mental Center Denied U.S. Funds," New YorkTimes, Oct. 12, 198~, p. B3; Bruce Alpert, "State Set toMove to Restore Fed $$ to Psychiatric Center," StatenIsland Advance, Nov. 5, 1982, np.(11) "Allen S" is the name used by the Commission onQuality of Care. His actual name is not known to thisauthor. Information on his case was obtained largely fromthe death report by the Commission and from thefollowing articles: David Seifman, "Scandal of Patient'sDeath in the Hospital of Horrors," New York Post, Feb. 6,1980, p. 5; " 'Gross Physical Abuse' is Blamed forManhattan Mental Patient's Death," New York Times, Feb.7, 1980, p. B4; and Bob Keeler, "State Blames Staff inPatient Death," Newsday, nd., p. 5.(12) This information was provided by Clarence Sundram,chairman of the Commission on Quality of Care, in anarticle by Bella English and Mary Ann Giordano, "Bedlamin Mental Health: Mental Care Under Analysis," DailyNews, Dec. 15, 1982, p. 30. This was later confirmed by himin a radio interview with me on the Madness Network,WBAI-FM, Feb. 9, 1983.

10 Phoenix RisingSOUTH BEACH -A Personal AccountOn December 8, 1982 Allen Markman interviewedthe mothers of two of these victimsof South Beach's notorious "care": FrancesRuggeri, mother of Anthony Ruggeri*, andGeorgette Zamora, mother of AndrewZamora. Excerpts from the interview withMrs. Zamora reveal the full horror of psychiatricrealities grasped too late - but nowcourageously exposed.*See the last issue of PHOENIX RISING (Vo1.3, No.4) forthe documentation of Anthonyinterview with his mother.Ruggeri's ordeal and theA.M.: MRS. ZAMORA, HOW DID YOUR SON FIRSTGET INVOLVED WITH PSYCHIATRY?G.Z.: He was always a quiet child and very well-mannered.As a teenager, I guess he just wanted to be noticed and act alittle more macho than he ordinarily was. And he wanted tochange in a lot of ways, to be tough, or to act tough. It washard for us to understand because everything was so oppositeof what he was normally like. He started blasting his music.There were other signs. He said he was lonely a lot of timesand that he wanted a girlfriend. It just seemed like it was astage of his life where he was generally unhappy. We triedhaving private counselling, and it didn't seem to work. Andat school he seemed to be drawing more attention to himselfand not listening. It just seemed to be a very troubling timeas an adolescent.A.M.: HOW OLD WAS HE AT THIS TIME?G.Z.: He was close to being 15. He'd start about 14 or 15years of age. I had gone to New York, the Payne ValleyClinic, to get some help. There was an incident at homewhere he took - I don't remember what led up to it - coldcream and he spilled it all over his sister's bed. He was justreally difficult. But there were other signs where I saw he wastroubled. We went to Payne Whitney and we sort ofconvinced the doctor - I didn't know what I was gettinginto with Andrew - and they admitted Andrew that day.When I realized, after I saw it wasn't just like a regular hospitalenvironment, that you couldn't just leave and thatdoors close behind you, I felt frightened. I know Andrewmust have been terribly frightened because he was 15 years ofage. And that night I found out that he said something toone of the attendants there, and he put Andrew in what theycall a "seclusion room" and drugged him with HaldoI. Andthat was Andrew's first experience - he said something likea psychedelic trip. He kept falling down, his eyes keptroIling up, his tongue was swollen. It was a very terrifyingexperience. After we found out, I wanted to take Andrewout immediately. I never knew such things went on. Theyconvinced us to let Andrew stay awhile, and that while lastedtwo weeks. After that, it was like Andrew went downhill allthe way because he was so terrified. He blamed us forputting him in a place like that. That was his first experience.And I'm sorry to say I can't go back and change anything.A.M.: OKAY. SO WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A PRETTYSIMILAR TYPE OF SITUA nON TO THA T OFANTHONY RUGGERI. THE PROBLEMS ARENORMAL, EVERYDAY KINDS OF PROBLEMS KIDSHAVE. AND PARENTS THINK tHAT IF THEY SENDTHEIR KID TO THE HOSPITAL EVERYTHING ISGOING TO BE TAKEN CARE OF THERE BECAUSETHEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY EXPERIENCES WITHTHESE KINDS OF THINGS. SO WE KNOW HOW THISSTARTED, MRS. ZAMORA. WHAT HAPPENEDLATER? AFTER ANDREW GOT OUT, HOW DID HEWIND UP IN SOUTH BEACH THE NEXT TIME?G.Z.: After that bad experience, Andrew sort of lost faith inus for bringing him to the hospital. It seemed to go downhillall the way. And then we had a very tragic experience. Thethree of us almost lost our lives. We had a fire in the house.It started downstairs, and we had to go live in hotels and inanother apartment. All of Andrew's artwork and everythingwas destroyed. He had his appendix taken out; he felt heshouldn't have had. It left a terrible scar. There were severalincidents where he got hostile towards us and we would callthe police on him, unfortunately, because it was difficultcoping with these moods. And he was at Staten IslandHospital for a short period. And leading up to the incidentwhere he was at South Beach for three months. It was just alot of distrust on both sides. And they had stolen Andrew'sradio. We kept nagging him. He didn't want to tell us it wastaken at knifepoint because this was his second expensiveradio. He told us they had left it in a locker in Macy'sdepartment store, and we kept insisting that he had to get itbecause he couldn't leave it there. I was at work, and he hada fight with his father, and he stabbed his father. The policecame and rather than having him put in a jail, we requestedthat he be put at South Beach. We preferred a privatehospital but it doesn't work that way. He was there for threemonths. They continued to medicate Andrew even though wesaid we didn't want it because he was allergic to thesemedications and he felt sick. Andrew often said he had noobjection to good therapy, but what he did object to wasthese drugs and how they made him feel and how sick he felt.And he couldn't think right. His hands trembled andeverything else. When he came out of South Beach afterbeing there for three months, we had no reason to fearbecause we were there all the time and they treated Andrewwell. I didn't even know that such things as restraints and allthat existed. He came home and he was like his old selfagain. He was caring, he was good, and it was like our oldAndrew had come back to us. He was upset because hecouldn't go to school because we didn't want him back in thesame atmosphere he was in before. And we had gone toFlorida. He was supposed to start in a private treatmentschool there that was college prep also and high school.And I think over there he was a little upset because he foundout that if the need arose they would give him drugs,that's what Andrew hated.andA.M.: AT THIS SCHOOL IN FLORIDA THAT YOUWERE PLANNING TO SEND HIM?G.Z.: Exactly, and when he found out that if they felt heneeded it he would get drugs it frightened him all again. Andhis distrust of us started. So when he came back home he

Phoenix Rising 11was very distrustful of us. We went to the hospital to ask forhelp ... Once we felt he was there at that school he wouldlike it because we liked the school, and we felt that hewouldn't be so negative about going there. He just didn'twant to go. He had his doubts. He felt we were tricking himall over again. And the hospital wouldn't send anybody tohelp so, unfortunately, we called the police again and theysent him to South Beach. Except this time they wouldn't letus see Andrew. We found out he was tied to a bed for twoand a half days.A.M.: AND THIS WAS THE THIRD HOSPITALI­ZATION?G.Z.: This was the last time. We went there the first day.They wouldn't let us see him. They said Andrew was doingwell, but they didn't want us to see him. Sunday we didn'tbother to go because they said that we couldn't see him untilMonday. Monday my husband went. He was told Andrewwas doing great, not to worry, and to come back the nextday.A.M.: THIS WAS IN AUGUST OF LAST YEAR.G.Z.: August. He died on August 17, 1981. That same day at11 o'clock my husband was told by a therapist he was doinggreat, he was going upstairs, and he would be releasedshortly because they knew he was starting his private school.That afternoonto us.I was called that Andrew was dead. They liedA.M.: WHAT WERE THE CIRCUMSTANCES BEHINDTHAT?G.Z.: That hospital South Beach is notorious for not lettingthe parents see their children when they're doing somethingthey shouldn't be doing, because they know darn well if anyof the parents knew for one instant their children were indanger, that they had them tied down - for ten days theyhad Mrs. Ruggeri put off. She had no inkling or any indicationthat anything was wrong. And just like us. Andrewwas there for two and a half days telling us how wonderful ... I brought a bag of fruit and change of clothes. When Iwas told he was dead two and a half days later, I found outhe never even got any of the stuff. He didn't even have achange of underwear because they had him tied down.A.M.: HOW DID THEY TELL YOU? HOW DID YOUFIND OUT?G.Z.: They were heartless. First of all, they didn't even wantus to find out the true facts because we were called and wewere told that an "incident," an "emergency situation" hadarisen. At that point I got hysterical because I couldn'timagine what "emergency situation" - exact words ­meant. And when I started to cry and I asked this JonathanKane, who was the chief psychiatrist, what he meant, he verycoldly told me he couldn't tell me. I'd have to wait to get tothe hospital. He was sending a police car to get me. Well, 1was a nervous wreck. When I got there I hadn't even steppeda foot in the door when this man coldly told me, "I guessyou know Andrew's dead." With that I got hysterical. I said,"How could I possibly imagine my 17 year old son is dead?He was so healthy." And he gave me some story. I have awitness that was with me all the time and who wouldn'tbelieve it either. He told me that Andrew was calmly talkingto a patient, the patient happened to fall asleep, and anattendant came into the room to check on them, and hefound Andrew foaming at the mouth. He had just simplydied. And they couldn't explain why. Somebody slipped andsaid something about restraints. With that, I got hysterical. Isaid, "My God, you didn't have my son in restraints, didyou?"A.M.: WHAT RESTRAINTS? YOU MEAN LIKE ASTRAIT JACKET?G.Z.: Yes, and that's what I thought they meant. I did seepeople in restraints at one point, but they were able to walkaround. But never my son. And I couldn't imagine why theywould ever do it to him because he was well-behaved andnever any problem.A.M.: HOW DID YOU FIND OUT THE TRUTH BEHINDIT?G.Z.: Well, when he slipped. This male nurse slipped. Dr.Kane looked at him with one of those looks, and I said,"You didn't have Andrew in restraints, did you?" And thenthey quickly checked themselves and said, "No, of coursenot." The next day I get a telephone call from a StatenIsland reporter who tells me that Andrew not only was inrestraints. He was tied in a bed posey - his feet - and anetting on top.A.M.: THAT'S LIKE A NET THEY TIE THEM DOWNTO THE BED WITH.G.Z.: And a netting tied down, and then a netting up to theirneck where they can't even move. I started to cry hysterically.I couldn't imagine why on earth they would do this tothis child. Because one thing I can verify: Andrew had agood rapport with the staff. He listened to everybody andwas very well-behaved.A.M.: THEN WHY WOULD THEY HAVE A REASONTO RESTRAIN HIM?G.Z.: Well, I did my own detective work about that, and Ihad my thoughts on that. Andrew, they knew, had allergicreactions to medications. He couldn't tolerate it. I found outlater he was falling down and getting all these queersymptoms that they couldn't relate to. I managed to talk to,believe it or not, the patient who was in the room withAndrew that same day he was killed. I don't say "died." Isay killed. And he told me that Andrew was getting reactionsto the medication and they were afraid of him hurtinghimself. So what a compassionate thing these people do!Instead of calling a doctor or trying to see if these symptomsare real, they tied him into a bed posey until he's foundbleeding, foaming at the mouth, and bleeding frompractically every organ in his body.A.M.: NOW, WHEN SOMETHING LIKE THISHAPPENS, A LOT OF AGENCIES COME IN ANDTHEY SAY THEY'RE GOING TO DO INVESTI­GATIONS.G.Z.: Right.

12 Phoenix RisingA.M.: HOW MANY AGENCIES WERE INVOLVED ININVESTIGATING THIS?G.Z.: Well, you have to imagine. By the time Andrew died,he was the third death. You can speak to Mrs. Ruggeri. Herson was the first death. And this poor woman went toDistrict Attorney Sullivan, who turned his back on her. Shewent all over and nobody listened. And if you read thereport on her boy's death, it's like a horror story. Nobodycared and nobody listened. And Mrs. Ruggeri has an accent,so nobody listened even more so. Then the Singer girl died,and nobody listened.A.M.: JUDITH SINGER.G.Z.: Right. But when Andrew died, here was one motherwho made herself very vocal. I have a brother who forced meto call every TV station and every newspaper. And, believeme, I was sad, and it was very hard for me to do. And a lotof people watched. My brother said, "Unless you bringpublicity nobody's going to care and it's going to be coveredunder the rug like every other death there."A.M.: WHAT YOU'RE SAYING IS THAT THECOVERUP STARTED THE MOMENT YOUR SONDIED.G.Z.: Way before. By that time - I'm surprised that thefirst two reports put out by the Commission on Quality ofCare were a little honest. But when it came Andrew's turn, itwas complete distortion of facts.A.M.: AND ALSO THERE'S THE MEDICALEXAMINER'S REPORT.G.Z.: Also a whitewash. All the way down the line. Don'tforget. These are city and state commissions covering a statehospital. Nobody's going to tell me different.A.M.: WHAT DID THE MEDICAL EXAMINER SAYWAS THE CAUSE OF DEATH?G.Z.: Myocarditis. I can never pronounce that word ... but Iknow what it is. It's an inflammation of the heart muscle.A.M.: NOW, THIS ISN'TDITION IN 17 YEAR OLDS.A VERY COMMON CON­G.Z.: A 17 year old, healthy child who had no incidence ofheart condition whatsoever.A.M.: AND NO INFECTIONS THAT COULD CAUSETHIS?G.Z.: None whatsoever. But I'm sure if I'm sure of anythingthat that was due - and it can also be caused by an allergy.I'm sure as anything else that this was due - to all thosemedications they pumped into Andrew until he exploded ...A.M.: ONCE THEY GAVE HIM THORAZINE. THEYGA VE HIM A LOT OF SERENTIL. THEY STARTEDHIM ON SOMETHING CALLED "RAPID NEURO­LEPTIZATION," WHICH MEANS PUMPINGSOMEBODY FULL OF A LOT OF DRUGS AND THENTAPERING DOWN THE DOSAGE TO A MAINTE­NANCE LEVEL. BUT I THINK THEY NEVER GOTAROUND TO GIVING HIM THE MAINTENANCEDOSAGE BECAUSE HE DIED FIRST.G.Z.: He exploded.A.M.: WHAT WAS INTERESTING WAS IN THEMEDICAL EXAMINER'S REPORT THEY SAID THATSEVEN ORGANS WERE ABNORMAL, INCLUDINGTHE HEART. NOT JUST THE HEART, BUT SEVENORGANS SHOWED A GREAT DEAL OFABNORMALITY - HEMORRHAGING. THERE WASCONGESTION IN THE LIVER, THE LUNGS, THESPLEEN - YOU CAN GO THROUGH A WHOLE LISTOF THINGS.CARE FORYET THE COMMISSION ON QUALITY OFTHE MENTALLY DISABLED NEVERMENTIONED THAT. ALL THEY MENTIONED WASTHAT ONE HEART CONDITION.G.Z.: Isn't it strange? Every death is related to the heart insome way. And they're not going to admit that they werewrong.A.M.: THE MEDICAL EXAMINER CAN'T SAY THATDOCTORS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATH OFSOMEBODY BECAUSE THAT VIOLATES THEIRETHICS.G.Z.: Of course not. You're fighting a state hospital - fourdeaths were in state hospitals. That's why I and Mrs. Ruggeribecame so vocal. Because, first of all, nothing in this world isgoing to bring back our children. Our pain is so great. But Isaid to myself, I don't want anybody else to suffer what I'msuffering now. We're never going to have happy moments inour lives because our loved ones were taken away. And Ican't conceive how their jobs could be so important that theycan't admit that what they did was wrong and what they'redoing to so many people out there.A.M.: DO YOU SEE ANY WAY YOU CAN GETJUSTICE? ANY WAY AT ALL?G.Z.: When they stop giving these medications that can killpeople. And in such high dosages. They're not guinea pigsout there. They're people and they need help, and they'reentitled to the best therapy they can get. And even that I'mnegative about, because I really feel that these state hospitals,and even private hospitals, are just warehouses for people.A.M.: MRS. ZAMORA, YOU WERE TELLING METHAT YOU HAD A VISIT FROM SOME PRODUCERSTODAY FROM CHANNEL 13 PUBLIC TV. THEY'RE ...WORKING ON A FILM PROGRAM ON SOUTH BEACH.YOU SAID ORIGINALLY THEY WERE JUST GOINGTO DO A PROGRAM ON ...G.Z.: On the pros and cons of adolescents and mentalhealth. But it's mostly on South Beach now.A.M.: AFTER THEY SPOKE TO YOU THEY THOUGHTTHAT SOUTH BEACH WAS SUCH A BIG STORYTHA T THEY WOULD HAVE TO COVER IT. BOTHYOU AND MRS. RUGGERI HA VE THE SAMEATTORNEY. YOU BOTH SUED THE STATE INSEPARATE LAWSUITS. THE OTHER TWO FAMILIESALSO HAVE ATTORNEYS. I THINK MRS. SINGERHAS SUED. WE DIDN'T MENTION THE FOURTHPERSON, CHARLES DORSEY, WHO DIED JUST A FEWWEEKS AGO. HIS FAMILY ALSO HAS AN ATTORNEYAND THEY'RE CONSIDERING A LAWSUIT. WHATARE THE PROBLEMS OF SUING THE STATE?G.Z.: Nobody really wants to take the state on because theyisn't a lot of money involved. But we don't care. We wantjustice, whatever justice. I want them to find them guiltybecause I know they're guilty. And this is murder. Thesearen't deaths. This is murder. Legalized murder they'regetting away with.A.M.: YOU BOTH WENT TO THE DISTRICT ATTOR­NEY, AND YOU COULDN'T GET CHARGES PRESSED.G.Z.: Our district attorney was running for a judgeship. Hedoesn't want to make waves. He was just made a SupremeCourt judge. Sullivan doesn't want any trouble. We've goneto him time and time again. My husband's been there manytimes. We've gone to the police department.over.We've gone allA.M.: IN NEW YORK STATE, IT'S NOT REALLY ACRIME TO KILL A MENTAL PATIENT. IT'S NOTEVEN A MISDEMEANOR. SO HOW DO YOU GETJUSTICE IN A SITUA TION LIKE THIS? WITHCOVERUP AND IMMUNITY. THEY HAVE IMMUNITY.G.Z: Well, that's what I want to know. How do we getjustice? You kill a dog and you're in trouble. Torturing ananimal. They're torturing human beings and they're stillthere. And you know what's so ironic? All the people stillhave their same jobs. They're all still there, business asnormal. No matter how beautiful it looks from the outside.It looks like a country club.A.M.: YOU NEVER KNEW ANY OF THIS WENT ON

Phoenix Rising 13UNTIL YOU HAD TO LIVE THROUGH IT.G.Z.: Do you think Mrs. Ruggeri and I - I often think, ifmy son could have made it to a phone. My God. They wouldhave had to restrain my husband and I because if I had anyinkling - and I know for a fact Mrs. Ruggeri too. Theycould never have done any of that to Andrew, because theywould have had to account to me.A.M.: ACCORDING TO THE COMMISSION ONQUALITY OF CARE, YOUR SON WAS TESTED FOR AHEART CONDITION. THEY TOOK BLOOD SAMPLESAND, TWO DAYS AFTER HE DIED, THE TESTS CAMEBACK AND THEY FOUND OUT THAT HE HAD AHEART CONDITION.G.Z.: Oh, two days after he died. Isn't that funny? Isn't thatfunny? From a very healthy child.A.M.: SO IF THEY HAD WITHHELD THEMEDICATION, PERHAPS HE WOULDN'T HAVEDIED.G.Z.: Yeah, that's what they're saying.A.M.: WOULD YOU SAY THERE WAS ANYTHINGFAMILIES CAN DO TO PREVENT THIS FROMHAPPENING TO THEIR CHILDREN? WHAT CANTHEY DO?G.Z.: Let them not be fooled like Mrs. Ruggeri and I. Letthem insist on seeing their children every single day. Be there.Be aware of what they're giving your children. Read upabout these medications. Don't be fooled by what they'retelling you. And don't let them use your children or lovedones as guinea pigs. And never, never - that's where thedanger lies: when you're not allowed to see your children.South Beach is notorious for it. Because they know whatthey're doing is wrong and they wouldn't let any of us go in.If they weren't so frightened about what they're doing ­and what they were doing to our children was very wrong ­why didn't they let us go in? Because they know they werekilling them. Our children were not guinea pigs. I say to allthose people out there. Be aware. Ask questions. Don't letthem intimidate you. You have a right as a patient, andthere's nothing to be ashamed of. Mental health ... ithappens to everyone. Ask questions. Don't be ashamed. Bevocal like I am, and maybe then someday there'll be changes.A.M.: DO YOU THINK THEY WOULD ALSO BE ABLETO PREVENT THESE KINDS OF THINGS IF PEOPLEIN THE HOSPITAL, THE PROFESSIONALS, WEREHELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PATIENTS?O.Z.: Yes, yes. If criminal charges could be made againstthese people.

14 Phoenix Rising11th Annual InternationalConferenceFor Human Rights And AgainstPsychiatric OppressionSyracuse, New York, May 22, 1983An OverviewI'm really glad I went to this year'sconference in Syracuse, new York, heldMay 19-24. During the four days I wasat the conference,other ex-inmatesI talked with manyand Movementactivists who were at last year's conferencein Toronto and new ones. Eightof us Canadians participated in theconference, five from Toronto andHamilton, three from Quebec. It wasgreat seeing other Canadians fromAuto-Psy and Soliditaire in Quebec ­a renewal of friendship, strength andsolidarity. John Bedford, Connie Neiland myself came from ON OUR OWN.There were less people at this year'sconference - about 100; there wereroughly 140 last year. One reason forthe traditionally small turnout is thatthe vast majority of ex-inmates are unemployedand forced to survive onwelfare or SSI (Social SecurityInsurance in the US) of $300 or less amonth. Still, there was a good mix ofpeople from many ex-inmate I antipsychiatrygroups: Network AgainstPsychiatric Assault (NAP A) andMadness Network News in California;Mental Patients Liberation Front(MPLF) in Boston; Alliance for theLiberation of Mental Patients (ALMP)in Philadelphia; Mental PatientsAlliance of Central New York (MPA);Alternatives to Psychiatry Association(APA) in Florida; Project Release inNew York City; Project Acceptance inKansas; the Vermont Liberation Organization,as well as individuals fromMichigan, Il1inois, Maine, NewHampshire, Ohio and Texas, etc.The conference was held at SyracuseUniversity. The campus is located nearthe heart of Syracuse; it's a beautifularea with a mixture of modern and oldbrownstone and brick buildings andoases of green grass.There were many exciting workshops,plenary sessions (general meetings) andBY DON WEITZfilms and tapes. Some of theworkshops focused on such issues as:Psychiatric Drugs; Electroshock;Military I VA psychiatry; Racism;Sexism (separate men's and women'sgroups); Holistic Medicine and otherAlternatives; Advocacy; Fundraising;Marxist Analysis of Psychiatry - andmany more.The two workshops on racism wereparticularly important and attracted alot of people. So far, our Movementhas failed to attract black people andother people of colour. VirginiaRaymond was excellent as the resourceperson for the racism workshops. Thesecond workshop attracted over 30people; the presence and key contributionsof three black people madethis workshop more credible andrelevant than ones held at previous conferences.Some of the major issues discussedwere: 1. Identifying majorsources and reasons for racism in theMovement; (e.g. Why are only whitepeople setting conference agendas?Why aren't we allying ourselves withother movements focused on survivalissues such as the sterilization of psychiatricinmates, mentally retardedpeople, black and native people andChicanos - as well as such commonconcerns as welfare and housing?); 2.Incorporating an anti-racist analysisinto our anti psychiatry ideology andreaching out to people of colour nationallyand internationally;the National Anti-Klan3. EndorsingCoalition andencouraging people to endorse theCoalition at the next level; at theplenary on Sunday evening, we overwhelminglypassed a resolution toendorse the National Anti-KlanCoalition - one of the very few resolutionsvoted on at the conference. 4.Organizing the participation of exinmatesin the Anniversary Civil RightsMarch in Washington, D.C. in August.With possibly one exception, theplenary sessions were very frustrating- long-winded and upset with frequentinterruptions.method worksThe 'rotating chair'much better in smallgroups than in large, plenary sessions.Besides the Anti-Klan resolution, therewas a draft resolution to stage a continent-wideDAY OF PROTESTAGAINST ELECTROSHOCK thisyear, which we passed by consensus.This important resolution, buildingupon the very successful campaign bythe Coalition to Stop Shock inBerkeley, California, read in part:That a North American-wide Dayof Protest (against electroshock) bedeclared and that major cities haveindividual protests in the form that isbest for them. These could be demonstrationsat the most prestigiousfacilities practicing shock, publictribunals, educational campaigns,mediaviolentblitzes, marches and non­acts of civil disobedience.Self-help groups in all key cities areasked to take this on as a yearlyproject.The resolution also called for electingan organizing committee and setting adefinite date. Unfortunately, neitherwas accomplished.I also attended the men's workshopon Sexism, which I found involving andin fact quite personal at times. About20 of us in the workshop were alarmedand angry to hear that a woman ex·inmate at the conference was sexuallyharrassed by both another conferenceparticipant and a Syracuse Universitystudent, neither of whom wereidentified. This woman left theconference shortly after the incident. Itwas that event especially, I feel, whichled us men to draft a statement denouncingthe incident and all otherforms of sexual harrassment andsexism. Our brief statement was not as

Phoenix Rising 15comprehensive, analytical or powerfulas the position paper produced by thewomen's caucus at last year's conference("Mental Health and ViolenceAgainst Women: -A Feminist Analysis,"published both in Phoenix Rising,winter 1983 and in Inmates' Voice, fall/winter 1982, spring/summer 1983.)However, our statement is a timely andimportant step toward a full politicalanalysis of men's sexism in theMovement and the psychiatric system.Highlights of the conference for mewere the Press Panel and Public Tribunalon Sunday, May 22nd, our Dayof Protest Against Psychiatric Injusticeon Monday, and the independent CivilDisobedience Against Electroshock atBenjamin Rush Center on Monday andTuesday. The Press Panel featuredshort presentations on variousMovement issues by six ex-inmateselected by the conference.The Public Tribunal on THECRIMES OF PSYCHIATRY began at1 o'clock and ended around 4: 15. Whatan afternoon it was! At least 30 people,chiefly ex-psychiatric inmates togetherwith three or four non-inmatesupporters, walked in turn up to theopen mike to deliver very personal,political and often moving testimony: ittook courage, especially for the manynew people at the conference. Theyspoke the truth as we have lived it.They spoke the truth about what it'sreally like to be forcibly incarcerated,abused and brain-damaged by psychiatrists;the truth about what it's liketo lose our human and civil rightsunder the guise of "treatment"; thetruth about how both psychiatry andpsychiatric institutions humiliate andinvalidate us. The personal testimony Iwitnessed that afternoon will stay withme a long time.We held our public demonstrationson Monday, May 23rd: our DAY OFPROTEST AGAINST PSYCHIATRICINJUSTICE. There were actually foursimultaneous demonstrations targetedat four different psychiatric institutionsin Syracuse - the VA Hospital, one offour federal hospitals in the US wherepsychosurgery is legally performed;Benjamin Rush Center which practiceselectroshock treatment; St. Joseph'sHospital which practices heavydrugging, and Hutchings PsychiatricCenter where we finally assembled.After a brief meeting on campus, wesplit up into groups and startedmarching, chanting and singing. A fewmedia people met us en route and atthe psychiatric institutions forinterviews. I joined the group going toBenjamin Rush Center. We handed outanti-psychiatry /anti-shock leaflets, thenformed a moving 'picket line on thesidewalk in front of the entrance,chanted anti-psychiatry slogans andtalked with the media. Around 12:30that afternoon, we met at Hutchings,and for the next two hours we publiclydenounced psychiatry and forcedtreatment, talked with some inmateswho were glad to see us, and celebratedour survival, strength and solidarity inspeeches and songs. A few of ushanded a copy of the Movement'sDECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES tothe Medical Director and / or Administratorof Hutchings. The DECLARA­TION was published in Phoenix Rising,vol. 2, no. 4, and in Madness NetworkNews, vol. 7, no. 1.Throughout the conference, anumber of fine films and videotapeswere shown including "Psychiatry isgonna die" - a videotape of last year'sconference in Toronto produced andPanel And Tribunaldistributed by Auto-Psy in Quebec.Some of the films scheduled included:Titticut Follies, One Flew Over theCuckoo's Nest, Frances, I'm DancingAs Fast As I Can and Liz (about ONOUR OWN).The conference really ended with theCivil Disobedience Against Electroshockat Benjamin Rush Center,Syracuse's 'shock shop.' (The conferenceitself neither endorsed norblocked the CD.) For roughly fifteenhours - thirteen of us ex-inmatessuccessfully blockaded the institution'sfront entrance. The only violence happenedwhen either a staff person orvisitor forced his way through ourchain from the inside. We were alwayspeaceful and non-violent, which isessential for any CD. Eventually wejust sat down and fell asleep in front ofthe entrance, while our great supportpeople stayed awake watching over usand bringing us food and blankets tokeep warm. Our CD at Benjamin Rushended Tuesday morning with a pressconference around 10:45, when three orfour of us met with Dr. Dyer, MedicalDirector of the institution.The final plenary scheduled for Wednesdaymorning never took place, Iundenttand, because a lot of people hadalready left and many of those remainingstayed at Benjamin Rush to give us encouragementand support. As a result,no decisions were made about the placeor date of next year's conference, andno committee was elected to organizeour plannedAGAINSTDAY OF PROTESTELECTROSHOCK.Altogether it was another great conference.My congratulations to theMPA people in New York who did amagnificent job of both organizing andmaking us feel welcome.The panel discussion held on the morning of May 22 consistedof 5-minute presentations by six ex-inmates, chosen notas leaders but because each had something different and importantto say. Questions were received from other conferenceparticipants after each presentation, and from the public andthe press after all the presentations. The transcript whichfollows includes edited sections of three of the presentations,together with one final question and reply.JUDI CHAMBERLIN: Welcome. This Panel is to discussthe crimes of psychiatry. Virtually everyone here has been avictim of psychiatry. And I think it's very very importantthat we know what our history is, because like all oppressedpeople our history has been systematically kept from us anddestroyed.We know from brief fragmentary kinds of evidence thatex-patients have been fighting back for at least 100 years.And yet their words have been destroyed, discredited.Sometimes you read about these things in books written bypsychiatrists where they talk about these ideas as "paranoidideas," and about this anger as "symptomatic," and soforth. But we know that these people are speaking the truth.And that's really the power of our Movement - TRUTH.We don't have a lot of money; we don't have a lot of accessto the media, and from a glance I'm not sure that they'reany reporters here today. We don't have the credibility, thebuilt-in credibility that experts - especially medical experts- get in this society. So all we really have is the truth.This Movement, the part we're all part of now, is actuallyonly twelve years old, but there've been forerunners. As amatter of fact, one of our panelists today, Jordan Hess, wasinvolved in a group called WANA (WE ARE NOT ALONE)in 1948, where ex-inmates got together and talked about theirexperiences and gave each other support. And thatorganization was taken over and subverted and has nowbecome a large institution. And I say it's an institution, notbecause it's a building, a community program, but an in-

16 Phoenix Risingstitution in the most real sense called Fountain House,which is sometimes put forth in the liberal media as theIpodel of what ex-patients need. What Fountain House doesis take people's feelings of wanting to get together with otherex-inmates and subvert them into feelings that you're onlywell when you believe the authorized view, the staff view of"reality." So, it continues the same process in thecommunity which the institutions force upon us when theyhave us totally under their power.So, we've had to start over again and again and again andagain. This Movement really started with a group called theInsane Liberation Front in Portland, Oregon in 1970. One ofthe people who passed through Oregon and briefly got involvedin that group there later came back to New York Citywhere he came from and - with another person - started agroup called the Mental Patients Liberation Project in NewYork in 1971. I found out about this group a few monthsafter it started. I saw a little announcement in the VillageVoice in New York that said that there was a group calledthe'Mental Patients Liberation Project who met at a certainplace. I just sat there looking at that newspaper and said,"WOW! There are other people like me."That's one of the things our Movement 'just keeps ondoing; you see that especially at Conferences where there arealways new people who have just found out about us. Theyalways seem to feel a lot of energy and excitement and thatsame "WOW, there are other people like me." OurMovement has grown a tremendous amount. When theMental Patients Liberation Project started in New York, inthe same month in the same year (January, 1971), a group ofex-patients got together in Boston, Massachusetts, totallyindependently of anything that was happening in New York,and started the Mental Patients Liberation Front. Also inexactly the same month, a group of ex-patients and some oftheir supporters got together in Vancouver, Canada, andstarted the Mental Patients Association. These thingshappened totally independently, totally spontaneously amongpeople who didn't even know that the other things hadhappened until months and years later. It took us a while toget in touch with one another.The first Conference of this Movement, the ConferenceOn Human Rights and Psychiatric Oppression, happened inDetroit in 1973. It's important for us to know that thisConference was not started by ex-inmates; it was started by acoalition of ex-inmates and liberal professionals. It's beenpart of our historical development and our politicaldevelopment that the Conference has evolved into an exinmate-run-and-controlledconference. Part of our politicaldevelopment has been recognizing when it was that theliberal professionals were helping us, and when it was thatthey really began to get in the way.So since 1976, since the Boston Conference, this has beenan ex-inmate Conference. It's been very satisfying andgratifying to see its growth, to see how many more groupsthere are. Every year, there are groups from new places,there are people here from parts of the country that havenever had a Movement before. There are ideas jumping fromgroup to group. One of the things I meant to bring with meto this Conference, but I forgot it and left it home, was someliterature that just came in the mail the other day from an exinmategroup in what I believe is Waverley, Australia. It wasjust like other ex-imnate literature that I've seen from allover the world saying the same things. The group is calledthe Coalition Against Psychiatric Injustice and Coercion.They're saying the same things we're saying. The same thingsex-inmates are saying in England, in France, in Germany, inHolland, in Denmark, in Australia ... The words are the samefor the same reasons: It's the POWER OF THE TRUTH.CONNIE NEIL: I'm a sh~ck survivor. About 21 years ago, Ihad a baby and there was what they called a "psychoticepisode" attached to it. Apparently, this happens in aboutone out of every three hundred births. If I'd just been left bymy own, things more than likely would have just levelledout. I wasn't doing anything that was dangerous - not tomyself, not to my baby, not to anybody - I wasn'tthreatening to, I wasn't even thinking things that weredangerous. I was going up-and-down, up-and-down. I reallydidn't know what was going on. I was in my in-law's houseand it was all very strange for me. I didn't like what wasgoing on.I was taken to a psychiatrist who didn't know me in anyway. After a half an hour, he recommended out-patientshock treatment, even though I asked him to see someone inToronto or at least get records from someone I'd seen there.This wasn't done. The psychiatrist thought that I was"improved" to some extent after those three shocktreatments: I was very disoriented. But they decided that Ihadn't "improved"I was committed.enough, as far as they were concerned, soNow, what I'm going to talk about is to some extent aboutshock treatment, and to some extent about the way rights areviolated. I was not told I was being committed. I assumedthat other people were signing papers because I really didn'tfeel very well. I was a little confused. I went there (hospital)voluntarily, I knew that there was something the matter withme. And I thought that this was going to be of some help.Well, it wasn't of any help whatsoever. And the way thepeople looked at me ... there's no feeling like when that dooris slammed shut and you're in and they have the key.They started to give me shock treatments right from thevery beginning. I had the difficulties that are sometimesdescribed with them - memory loss and disorientation.When I would wake up from each treatment, I wouldn'tknow who any of the people were. I wouldn't know who Iwas. I wouldn't know what I was doing there, or where I wassupposed to go, or that I was supposed to eat, or even howto eat. I really didn't know anything.By the time that they would tell me - because you haveto have a little instruction each time - by the time that I gotso that I was familiar with my surroundings, the problemsthat I was having would also come back. So I really don'tknow what they thought they were doing. I don't believethey knew what they were doing. I was told by a shrink oncethat they don't know what shock treatmentknow that in some cases it "works" -does. They onlyand in some itdoesn't.I think that all of us should be aware of the way that ourrights are violated. Informed consent is one of the biggestissues that we try to push for when we are speaking. I thinkthe Day of Protest that we proclaimed last night at theplenary session is probably one of the most important thingsthat I'll be involving myself in. I'll never submit to anothershock treatment. I would die first. I became involved in theMovement to speak out against these things, despite the kindof personal cost there is and also because I have lost jobs.My testimony last year appeared in Phoenix Rising and itwas used against me at a job interview. So I want to urge youto work with us. I'm trying to arrange this Day of Protestagainst shock across the continent, and hopefully this intentional,sadistic procedure will never happen again.SALL Y ZINMAN: I think what everybody has been talkingabout in different ways is our reclaiming control over ourlives - about empowering ourselves, taking control back forourselves. The "mental health system" in various ways takesit from us just as society does, but we're here right now totalk about the "mental health system." The system is sanest:

Phoenix Rising 17that means it invalidates our perceptions and judgements. Itsays that we're "incompetent," that because we may befreaking out or having problems of living, we can not makedecisions about our lives. It forces "treatment" on us. Itmesses with our heads, our bodies - without our consent,without information about what's being done to us. Itmedicalizes our social problems,from us.and therefore takes controlWe have - besides talking about these things in ourMovement - tried to set up alternatives that will give backcontrol of our lives. For a second, I want to talk aboutalternatives the system has set up. "False alternatives" is aword Judi Chamberlin used in her book On Our Own, andit's a good word. Mostly, I'm going to talk about what arecalled "psycho-social rehabilitation centers" in the "mentalhealth system," because they're considered the mostprogressive thing in the "mentalthe alternative.health system" - are calledWe call them "false alternatives". I mean they talk good.They talk about "self-control," they talk about "empowerment,"they talk about "independence." They do theopposite. It's a double message. They talk about "membercontrol." Well, the members only control what maybethey're going to eat that day, but the staff controls thebudget, staff controls the decisions, staff controls the policymaking.And we get the message. We're told, "You'reimportant. You're wonderful. You go out and make it in thislife and be independent, but don't run this program becauseyou're not good enough." You know, there's a doublemessage there.They're talking about "psychosocial rehabilitation" - nottalking about medicine, but don't you forget it. Their"rehabilitation" is based on the medical model. All the _peoplefrom those programs are seen in the "med" clinic. They arethere because they are called "schizophrenics," "manicdepressives,"they are there because of their medical label.The staff is there because it's called a "school" - they'reexperts in what have you. The rehab centers call themselves"totally voluntary." Well, maybe 19 out of 20 people thereare at least officially voluntary, but for that one person whogets sent to the state hospital - there's enough of a threat. Itkeeps us all in line. So, in fact, there's a double message, andthey are not real alternatives.Our movement has tried to set up what we call truealternatives. In Florida, we have a house and a drop-incentre. In other places, there are drop-in centres and thebeginnings of houses. They are different in the sense that"patients" - members, residents, etc. - control their ownservice. Service recipients and service providers are one andthe same. They are user-controlled. People learn autonomyby being autonomous. This undercuts sanism. I mean we'renot saying, "You're going to be independent, etc. - but nothere!" You are being independent here.Our alternatives are not based on any medical model. Youdon't have to get a med appointment for your drugs. Youare your own expert about your own body and your ownmind. We strive to demystify our own bodies and minds. Weare totally voluntary. I don't even like to use that phrase(totally voluntary) because that phrase comes from the"mental health system." Self-determination is fundamental.People have choice, and that means they can choose to go tothe "mental health" centre if they choose. Unfortunately, inour house - which was designated drug-free - at least halfthe people at anyone time choose to go. But this is theirchoice and we have to honor that. For each person todetermine his or her answers, or no answers: that's what'ssignificant.We strive to be non-hierarchical, which is difficult. Wehaven't reached our goals, because we are so used to beingdependent that we have internalized the very hierarchy in theITRYITRY Organization is now officially incorporated and we areseeking new members to plan future activities. We are alsoplanning a trip to New York in late fall to perform the recentproduction of THE SCHIZOPHRENIC OPERA.If you wish to help us or learn any aspects of performancefeel free to give us a try and get up on stage.We are all trying and we are here to change the picture of theX-Psychiatric Patient.ACTION NEEDS INPUTSo let us know what you need help towards. TRY works whenyou get excited. TRY works with every step you take. TRYhas the contacts in all areas of culture if you want to try andgo in this direction.Ron GillespieDirector I TRY"mental health" system and in society into our own"system." But the beauty of a horizontal support isincredible. Somebody in a self-help group has said, "It's theinvigorating support of two people reaching across, insteadof reaching up or reaching down." We strive to be ademocratic, collective decision-making body.Our alternative in Florida is not complete. There's acontinuum, and the continuum is not complete. We have adrop-in centre, a house. We do not have a crisis unit yet.Again, I'm using "mental health" terms. We have no placewhere people completely freaked out can go. And so oftenthey fall back into the system. That work-evolving processwe haven't completed yet.But these things are occurring across the continent. Besidessaying what we don't like, we are beginning to create whatwe want. We are beginning to empower ourselves, becauseonly we can do so. Someone once said, "we are empoweringyou." That in itself is saying that we are here and you arethere - and that's invalidating and dehumanizing. Thankyou.QUESTION: Could Judi talk for a couple of minutes aboutsome of the changes she's seen in terms of strategies in theMovement in the last thirteen years?JUDI: It's kind of a hard question to answer, because we'resuch an independent bunch. We don't have policies andguidelines that people have to adhere to. It's a very gradual,evolutionary process. But I have seen certain changes in theMovement, and I would certainly divide it into three phases.One is that in the beginning, the conferences were open toeverybody, and there were tensions that developed betweenthe ex-inmates and the mental health professionals. Thosetensions culminated in the San Francisco Conference in 1975,when the ex-inmates there really felt invaded and taken over.The San Francisco-Berkeley area is one of the two centers inthe country where radical shrinks are, and they were there in

18 Phoenix Risingfull force, so we finally had to declare a "liberated zone" ofone room for ex-inmates only. And even then, that room wasinvaded. But out of that came something very positive, whichwas the separatist trend within the Movement, which saysthat as ex-inmates we have a right to our own organization,our own conferences, to develop our own theory, our ownideology, our own practice. I saw that as a very positivestep. To me, separatism has always meant precisely that ­that we go off to develop ourselves in the way we choose. Ithas never meant to me that we refuse to talk with anybodywho isn't an ex-inmate. And for me, that's been a rathernegative aspect of separatism in that some people seem tofeel that anytime you talk to somebody who isn't another exinmate,you're somehow compromising yourself. I thinkthat's changed within the last couple of years - that we arereaching out, that by being separatists, we have developedour strength, developed our ideology to the point where wefeel very confident in speaking out to the larger community- whether it's to the larger community on the left, as wetalked about in the workshop yesterday on our relationshipwith the left; whether it's to the women's community aswe've been talking about for a couple of years in theWomen's Caucus. And last year we developed a posidonpaper that we still have to try to disseminate into the largerwomen's community, giving our analysis of some of theissues we feel they've fallen down on. We're going to have anorganized ex-inmates' presence this year at a NationalInstitute of Mental Health Conference that's coming up nextmonth which a number of us are going to. We're going tocaucus now to develop what we're going to tell them there,which I think is very positive. I think it's very, veryimportant that as a Movement, we make our voices heard tothe larger community - whether it's the Left community orthe women's community or some other community withinwhat's generally known as the Movement - also to the widersociety as well as the psychiatric industry. We don't go todemonstrate at the APA (American Psychiatric Association)because we suddenly think they're going to get together andsay, "Hey, you folks are right. We're going to disband andstop being psychiatrists." (Laughter) We know that's notgoing to happen. We go there because we want them toknow about our Movement, about our anger, so that eventhough they might not agree with it - they might poohpoohit, they might discount it - they can't say that theydidn"t know. They can't say, "Oh, we thought all ourpatients were grateful and happy," because they hear us outthere yelling and screaming and telling them that we'reangry. I see that as a very positive development.WORKANDMADNESSThe Rise of CommunityPsychiatryby Diana RalphA scholarly insider's view of community mentalhealth systems which demonstrates the link betweenmass psychiatric imervention and the necd to defuselabour unrest and alienation 011 the job.$12.95 paper$22.95 clothBLACK ROSE BOOKSorder from University of ToronloPre ••Don QuixoteThe inmates went to the parkto hear the jazz concert;deep black shadows hungover the grass and thesun - sinking lower and lower ­was a thief with hispockets full.The inmates did not sitin the trees but walked,here and there, like pigeons,dreaming of sleepingwith full bellies,under the eaves of a church,where the air isfree,where they could awaketo the sound of bells.As the sun slippeddown the sky,the trumpet wailed,the windmills whirledon the popcorn-seller'sbuggy.And like Don Quixote,one stood up, fightingwith his own shadows,talking to himself:unsocialized behavior,noted, recorded;not alive, electric,dangerous to others.Sit down. Sit down.Do you want everyoneto knowwe're crazy?And as the trumpetwailed to the bloody sky,it sliced out the heartof this one,both mad,riding their madness,Don Quixote -his great white horse.While the others dreamtof sleeping like pigeonsunder the eaves of a church,waking to the sound of bells,with their bellies full.Madness, not enough, neverenough madness,charging like a greatwhite horse ...They went back to the wardearly because of him,this onenattering at him,angry...He did not notice:Sharp was his pulse,for he had ridden hard.Donna Lennick

Phoenix Rising 19peRsonalsLoRfes .ProbablyBY BUD OSBORNwe get up so fucken early to drive tothe va hospital in ann arbor that weboth feel like confused loose shit, &this morning first thing im sittin thereeyes filled w I laverne & shirley loudfilmed live, my stomach's dyin from thecoffee that's waken me up since i'd justgot to sleep, & i wanted to smoke thejoint id rolled the night before as soonas possible, already im thinking aboutworld hell & pat says i finished thatbook on francis farmer last night & isaid you did & i was thinking boom shethrows hard right away sometimes i likethat & Pat says yeah i read it & boywas i glad it wasnt so easy to get some·body locked up when i went crazy iddanever got out & we both laugh, bothshaking & chainsmoking & hunchedover like inmates on the ward, poorfrancis farmer, that was terrible patsaid, about those soldiers coming overfrom that army base & raping her everyweekend, yeah i said yeah, both of ushaving been raped at one time oranother, so we finally get in the car &it's hot in december & foggy & raining& clouds & mist & fl,1llmoons & dawnlights& highway pIS. 23 again, past thefederal correctional institution at milan,theyre expanding that joint i told pat,oh yeah she said, past the maximumsecurity mental health facility, prisonarea, dont pick up hitchhikers, past thestate maximum security prison forwomen, & upon the bridge over theexpressway, in the middle of flatdesolate michigan fields, graffiti: devilchildren pbb acid rain they love it, &the trucks passed us & drowned thesuburu & pat'd get nervous & jumpeach time & kick the plastic pitcher ofpiss she was bringing to ann arbor fortests,trucksshe said i guess im scared offrom the time we ran into onewhen i was a little girl in illinois, yeah, isaid, there's a helluva lot to be scaredof from those guys, & from everythingelse growing up in herrin: the sheltongang, first aerial bombing in the u.s.,bootleg battles, ku klux, mine riots,warfare w I scabs, her uncle shot deadin the streets, cave-ins, black lung,pat's father going to vote & returningsaying: anytime i have to walk over adead body to vote im gonna give it up,other relatives stabbed, still othersimprisoned for theft, & pat's afraidthere's more warrants out for her aboutbad checks and im not going back tojail either she said, me neither i said,bu~ i probably will, you probably willpat said & we both sighed, & talkedabout the fbi showing up early in themorning to threaten her w I prison ifshe wouldnt tell them where i was & shedidnt, my sister remembers that vividly,how awful they were, how stereotypical,& how fucken nasty .....Diary of a "mental patient": Street PeopleWe are the hole in life's doughnut.We sit here, all six of us, over coffee.It took us seven hours collectively tobeg the price of a coffee. The begging isessential or we freeze to death in thewinter night. Two hookers, exhaustedfrom the night's tricks, come in for awhore's breakfast, a cigaret and coffee.This is a gilt and neon scene. Neonannounces the trade of the place in itsoutdoor sign. Neon shines through theartificial orange juice and grape juicethat swirls and tumbles in its containers.Neon lights the place with raw colors.If our eyes weren't shut they wouldhurt with the reflection of so muchlight.This is how we sleep over a cup ofcoffee. The hostels were full. Thechurches are wall to wall bodies. Thereis no room for us there. We walked,begging, until we were saturated withcold. Then with fifty cents in smallchange we made it to the doughnutAnonymousshop where there is warmth if not life.The waitress is all of fifteen years old.Her boy friend waits patiently for heras he plays the outer space game on theneon lighted machine.We are doomed to this place until theEaton Center opens. Then we can sit infront of one of its restaurants and listento the jazz band inside. The musiccurves out of the front door andenvelopes us in its opium. It is also aplace to sleep sitting up and a place todream if the dreams will come as theyinfrequently do.At lunch time the restaurant is filledwith sales girls and salesmen, withexecutive type who are slumming, withold lady shoppers who are lured in bythe menu that hangs in the window.The odor of food sifts out through thedoor as well. Our stomachs have beenempty for so long that we are immuneto it.We are eventually joined by the peoplefrom the mental hospitals who are letout during the day. They spend most oftheir time here. If you will listen theywill tell you the story of their illness.Some of the six of us who sit here areformer mental patients too. But we aresilent. We are sick of the story of ourillness. We are too confused or toolethargic to apply for welfare. We justjoined our small group at the EatonCenter and we have never left it. Half adozen of us together always. We arewelded together by illness, poverty andthe necessity to belong somehwere ifonly in this isolated group of six.There are other groups and cliques inthe crowd. They are lucky they aremostly men and girls. We are only men,barely men in age.When our eyes are open we watch theshoppers walking back and forth. Theydangle highly colored plastic shoppingbags from their hands. They are well

20 Phoenix Risingdressed; coats open because they aretoo warm. What must it be like to betoo warm? We are familiar with what itis like to be too cold. There is amathematical line somewhere in thebody that turns into an icicle in thecold that almost cuts the life's bloodout of you.We are companions to the cold betweenthe time the Eaton Center closes untilwe beg fifty cents for the nightlycoffee. There is one waitress on the lateshift who will hand us free doughnutsas she will only put them on sale at acut price because they will be stale bythe next day. We would like to repayher for her generosity but what wouldwe use to pay it with? We are too numbto make the effort to ask her.Where did street people hang outbefore the Eaton family built thisplace? We are too young to rememberthose days.A drug dealer drifts in. Want any acidor grass? Up your ass. We are streetpeople but we are too smart to go ondrugs. Some of us have seen the junkiesthey bring in to the crisis wards of thehospital. They can vomit but there isvery little else they can do.The dealer scores, though. Someonewith cash in one of the groups hasenough for a joint for everyone. Whatwould old Timothy Eaton say in thechurch named after him if he could seehis high tech shopping plaza swirling inthe odor of grass smoke? What wouldthe old man say into his beard if hewere alive and a witness to the streetpeople of the city. They say you canbuy anything on the Yonge street wherethe Eaton Center sits. Commerceattracts commerce. Available asmerchandse are human flesh, male andfemale, thugs, thieves and ID cards.That wasn't the idea that built the placebut it unexpectedly turned up as one oflife's iron facts almost as soon as theplace was open.They say tourists come for milesaround to visit this place. How do theymiss the street people? How do theyavoid the odor of grass? Do they knowhow much acid it takes to rot the brain?Hardly. They are the innocents of theworld united in their ignorance of life.And they are not enlightened aboutthese things by the tourist brochuresabout Toronto.You won't find anything on TimothyEaton's gravestone that he left the citythese things in his will.But, now it is closing time. Time for usto move among the hurrying pedestriansto beg until we have fifty cents forcoffee.Tonight there are only five of us in thedoughnut shop. The sixth member ofour group didn't make the fifty cents.Don't worry about him. He jumped offthe Bloor Street viaduct before he frozeto death.getting culturethey troop us from a grouphouse to a playlittle ducklings two by twothe social workers fresh from college heading adelinquent and derelict processionalalong dupont up to the tarragon theater for atorpid play about the untorrid life of aprovincially straitjacketed womantranslated from the french and written by a mana play coming at us from many removesi sit down front row smack center knees rubbing the stagebeside doug the skinny many-weathered grizzledbootleggerwho's got the lack-of-wine-bad-shakesit's his very first playand in a very early scene the girl's brothersnatches her doll stabs it and sheall-of-a-sudden SCREAMS right-at-usjolting doug skyhigh off his chair and into thatemphysemic cement-mixer rattle in his chestand he gasps real loudNO WONDER MY NERVESARE BADit's a playas long as life is short and every bit asabsurd with no intermission so that manykidneys are at high tide and a million nicotined cellsare calling for help so doug clambors up clumsy cowboybootsstumbling coughing wheezing clattering through the smalltheater's full house, and eclipses the spotlightmomentarilyand announces by way of explanationI HAVE NEVERBEEN SO BORED IN MY LIFEfinally it ends she dies and outsidei ask doug what he thinks of his very first playand he says, "they'll never get me to another one, i feellike i been dragged through an asshole and fed farts fora week,"it was the finest theatricalcriticism i've ever heard,by bud osbornSecond Story GraphicsTYPESETTING I DESIGN I ASSEMBLY I PRINTING CONSULTANT(416) q94-2565

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ness, and syncope. In the event hypotension occurs, epinephrine 23should not be used as a pressor agent since a paradoxical furtherlowering of blood pressure may result. Nonspecific EKG changeshave been observed in som~ patients receiving Navane. Thesechanges are usually reversible and frequently disappear oncontinued Navane therapy. The incidence of these changes is lowerthan that observed with some phenothiazines. The clinicalsignificance of these changes is not k.nown.eNS effects: Drowsiness. usually mild, may occur although itusually subsides. with continuation of Navane therapy. Theincidence of sedation appears similarto that of the piperazine groupof phenothiazines. but less than that of certain aliphaticphenothiazines. Restlessness, agitation and insomnia have beennoted with Navane (thiothixene). Seizures and paradoxical exacer­'bation of psychotic symptoms have occurred with Navaneinfrequently.Hyperreflexia has been reported in infants delivered frommothers having received structurally related drugs.In addition. phenothiazine derivatives have been associatedwith cerebral edema and cerebrospinal fluid abnonnalities.Extrapyramidal symptoms, such as pseudo-parkinsonism.akathisia. and dystonia have been reported. Management of these:extrapyramidal symptoms depends upon the type and severity.Rapid relief of acute symptoms may require the use of an injectableantiparkinson agent. More slowly emerging symptoms may bemanaged by reducing the dosage of Navane and/or administeringan ontl anti parkinson agent.Persistent Tardive Dyskinesia: As with all antipsychotic agentstardive dyskinesia may appear in some patients on long tenntherapy or may occur after drug therapy has been discontinued. Therisk seems to be greater in elderly patients on high-dose therapy.especially females. The symptoms are persistent and in somepatients appear to be irreversible. The syndrome is characterizedby rhythmical involuntary movements of the tongue. face, mouthor jaw (e.g .• protrusion of tongue, puffing of cheeks. puckering ofmouth, chewing movements). Sometimes these may be accompaniedby involuTHary movements of extremities.There is no known effective treatment for tardive dyskinesia:antiparkinsonism agents usually do not alleviate the symptoms ofthis syndrome. It is suggested that all antipsychotic agents bediscontinued if these symptoms appear.Should it be necessary to reinstitute treatment, or increase thedosage of the agent. or switch to adifferent antipsychotic agent. thesyndrome may be masked.It has been reported that fine vennicular movements of thetongue may be an early sign of the syndrome and if the medicationis stopped at that time, the syndrome may not develop.Hepatic effects: Elevations of serum transaminase and alkalinephosphatase, usually transient. have been infrequently observed insome patients, No clinically confirmed l'ases of jaundice attributableto Navane have been reported.Hematologic effects: As is true with certain other psychotropicdrugs, leukopenia and leukocytosis. which are usually transient.,can occur occasionally with Navane. Other antipsychotic drugshave been associated with agranulocytosis. eosinophilia. hemolyticanemia. thrombocytopenia and pancytopenia.Allergic reactions: Rash. pruritus, urticaria. photosensitivityand rare cases of anaphylaxis have been reported with Navane.Undue exposure to sunlight should be avoided. Although notexperienced with Navane, exfoliative dennatitis and contactdennatitis (in nursing personnel) have been reported with certainphenothiazines.Endocrine disorders: Lactation. moderate breast enlargementand amenorrhea have occurred in a small percentage of femalesreceiving Navane, If persistent, this may necessitate a reduction indosage or the discontinuation oftherapy. Phenothiazines have beenassociated with false positive pregnancy tests, gynecomastia.hypoglycemia. hyperglycemia, and glycosuria.Autonomic effects: Dry mouth. blurred vision, nasal congestion,constipation. increased sweating, increased salivation, andimpotence have occurred infrequently with Navane therapy,Phenothiazines have been associated with miosis. mydriasis. andadynamic ileus.Other\adverse reactions: Hyperpyrexia. anorexia. nausea.vomiting. diarrhea. increase in appetite and weight, weakness orfatigue, polydipsia and peripheral edema.Although not reported with Navane. evidence indicates there is areJationship between phenothiazine therapy and the occurrence ofa systemic lupus erythematosus· like syndrome.NOTE: Sudden deaths have occasionally been reported 10patients who have received certain phenothiazine derivatives, Insome cases the cause of death was apparently cardiac arrest orasphyxia due to failure of the cough reflex. In others. the causecould not be determined nor could it be established that death wasdue to phenothiazineadministration.Introducing ...Navane®(thiothixene Hel)IntramuscularFor Injection ~5mg/ml

24 Phoenix Risingtell, somebody who isn't there - andyou can never get to that person to say"it's making me fall down, making mego all red, making my heart race."Anybody can see somebody fall downor theirskin go all red. After I was outof the institution, I was on Elavil fordepression, and because I wanted to geton with my life I went to a dance class.Something about the drug doesn'tallow a person to perspire. This meansthat if you exert yourself, you becomeall red. I got heat prostration with bigblotches of white and red all over me.When I went to see the shrink, I toldhim about this, and he added anotherdrug. Instead of taking me off ElaviI,he added Librium, saying it wouldsomehow change my muscle reaction.I got a job with Imperial Oil assupervisor of their typesetting room. Iwas already on the job when I had totake their medical. They asked me whatdrugs I took - aspirin, Elavil, Librium-'and why I took them. So I brieflytold them that I'd had this problem andbeen told I had to take them all thistime - this is about six years later. Thedoctor said they couldn't hire me, indicatingbig books above him, that itwas against company policy.I said that I was already workingthere, that the policy was discriminatoryand that I would sue. Then I wentback down to where I worked and mysuperior was waiting and said, "Whaton earth went on up there: you've got amedical rating of F - I've got a manout on the press with only one leg whohas a better medical rating than you."When I tried to tell him, he said, "Idon't want to hear about it." So I said,"What do you think I'm going to do,throw a fit on the floor, stabsomeone?" He just kept saying hedidn't want to deal with it, until I said Iwould sue. They kept me on as apermanent, part-time, temporary employeeand I had to have a yearlymedical. I was still in charge of theroom, but with limited benefits. Theywere just waiting for the time when Iwould lose my temper or slip up insome way. None of those things happened.Three-and-a-half years later,there was a reorganization and twodepartments were put together, so theyput a secretary with a lot of service incharge. She hadn't my knowledge orexperience and was reluctant to ask mehow to do things, so conflicts developedand I was fired. They wanted meto resign because of my psychiatricrecord, they said it would look betteron my record and I'd stand a betterchance of getting a job. And I said,"No, it's going to look just as bad onyour record." But that taught me thathaving psychiatric drugs is a way oflabeling you, so that you're notaccepted for jobs, not accepted in manyvarious ways. I decided I should get offthem. I wasn't successful at first ingetting off them, partly because I'dbeen told I'd continue to have depressions,that it was a chemical thing.How I got off them was to take themtwo days, and on the third day cutdown some. After a week or so, youcut down on the second day, untilyou're taking only one each night, thenevery second night, every third night,then nothing. I've been off them aboutthree years.I find that because I'm not takingdrugs, I'm a lot clearer about what I'mdoing, I can decide better. I'm a lotmore agitated, so I don't really looktoo cool, and because I'm agitated itaffects my voice and I sometimes looka little strange or nervous, which I am.But I've had periods of depressionwithout the drugs, which I've gottenthrough without the drugs. What I'velearned about them is that they docome and they do go, and whether youhave the drugs or not, you're going togo through it anyway and the only wayto get through it is to just keep doingthe things you have to do every day andnot give in to it. Taking drugs, I think,is a form of giving in to it. It's seeingyourself as less than human when youput yourself on them. So even thoughit's more difficult without them - andit is difficult - I'm glad I'm nottaking them. I found no one wanted tohelp me go off them. Finally a shrinkfriend explained how you must go offthem gradually and I kept track of itmyself. No one monitored me.ALLENMARKMANI had never really thought of myselfas having a psychiatric drug problem,thought of it as incidental, but I justmade a list of all the drugs I rememberbeing on and it's incredible how easy itis to forget them. It wasn't really asecondary, but a primary experience. Alot of times I was looking for drugsmyself to knock me out and prevent mefrom feeling the very difficult things Iwas going through, the pain of goingthrough a total disorganization of mymind, and feeling that I was goingcrazy, and the knowledge that I wouldgo crazy and it would take nearly a yearto go through that, and that there wasnothing I could do about that but wait.It all started when I was seventeenand having problems at college, sufferingextreme anxiety, terror. I wentto a psychiatrist, a very nice man, whocouldn't do very much for me. He gaveme Ritalin - I don't know why - buthe said it would take the bite off mydepression, whatever that meant. It increasedmy anxiety and mental energyby about 500 percent, although I wasstill lethargic. I still didn't want to getup to get dressed or shaved, so it reallydidn't help me. About six weeks later, Iwound up in the Institute of Living inHartford, Connecticut, which is whereJean Lindsay was talking about. I hada young psychiatrist who prescribed alow dose of Meliarii. What surprisedme was I didn't notice any effect exceptit made me impotent, which I thoughtwas very curious. After two months, Icomplained and he took me off it anddidn't put me on anything else. Fromthe time I escaped from there, I wasdrug-free until about five years ago.I started taking Valium - self-prescribed,got a supply of it - for similartypes of anxiety. It did it temporarily,but as soon as the pill wore off I stillfelt I was going crazy, that my mindwas coming apart, wasn't workingproperly. I was also in a difficult familysituation so I stayed with some relativesdown on Long Island and they saidthey understood what I was goingthrough, but I'd have to have someprofessional help while staying there.So I circled some names in thetelephone book and ended up with apsychiatrist who prescribed Dalmaneand Elavii. The Dalmane was to makeme sleep, because I hadn't slept properlyin a number of weeks: I'd just liethere. The Elavil which was for depressionmade me "spacy". My tongueswelled up to twice its normal size and Ihad trouble breathing and had theproblem of not being able to perspireregardless of what the temperature wasoutside. I would just break out inrashes. That was a very unpleasant experience.The Dalmane I enjoyedbecause it made me unconscious forabout eight hours which is whatwanted. I wanted to be unconsciousIatthat time permanently. I coped with myfeelings by planning suicides. Should itbe hanging? Should it be shooting?Jumping in the river? In front of atruck? - constantly. My condition wasimpossible, but I was able to mask thisand people thought I was perfectlynormal. Doctors thought I was okay,but I thought I was crazy - a verydifficult problem. I liked this Dalmaneso much, I decided to take the rest ofthe bottle at once and wound up inHuntington, a general hospital. Thedoctor there took me off all drugs, refusedto give me any medication for thethree weeks I was there, even though Ibegged for it. I wanted something toknock me out for as long as possible

Phoenix Rising 25because I was in such psychic pain,and with my being locked up in thispsychiatric institution, there was nodiversion from this pain for threeweeks. Once I got out of there, about aweek later, I went to a private institutionfor an evaluation because myfamily demanded it. They threatenedme with an emergency commitment toCreedmore and said if I didn't comequietly, they would ship me over withguards in a locked car with bars. Thedoctor there admitted me as avoluntary. She gave me the choice ofinvoluntary commitment for 15 days orvoluntary, and like a fool I signedmyself in and was there for fourmonths. The doctor didn't really speakEnglish. All he could say was endogenousdepression and give me alecture on what that was and put me onSinequan - a high dose that left mespaced out and lethargic, and I wasn'table to speak for a long time. Then hedecided I was a psychotic, so hereleased me and put me on Navane andArtane. Navane aga~n made mespaced out, and the Artane made mehigh. I took the Artane quite willinglybecause it made me happy andeuphoric. Some people have that effectwith the anti-parkinsonians. He gaveme that because when he had me holdout my hand I had fine hand tremor, soinstead of cutting the other drug headded this on top of it.When I wound up back in thehospital - the clinic wanted me backbecause they said I was regressing - Ispent another three months on theNavane and Artane. A couple of weeksafter my release, I stopped taking thedrugs, didn't go back to the clinic, andmy depression disappeared entirely.There was a period of about fourmonths of euphoria and then I feltexactly like I did before these problems.I think I'm prone to depression, andwhen I get into a stressful situationwhere I try to fit into what people thinkI should be - like having a job,wearing a suit, doing what my familywants, what everyone else in my type ofculture or neighbourhood want, whatpeople I went to school with do - itcauses such a conflict that it drives mecrazy. Some people can handle it, somedrink, but me - it drives me crazy. Ihave to be myself. I like to do what I'mdoing now, involved with the Movement,this work, helping others whohave gone through the same things,preventing others from going throughit.I don't think the drugs caused myproblems, although they may havecontributed, but I don't see that theyare any kind of solution for myproblems. They're very soft solutions.8••8..,--~~..:."-. @o•

26 Phoenix RisingDISEASE NOW, DISEASE THEN,DEPRESSION IN PRE-COLUMBIAN ART DISEASE AGAIN"While undertaking a larger study dealing with representations ofdisease in pre-Columbian ceramic figures, the authors found four figuresin which depression was clearly depicted. Their findings provethat psychiatric disorders did not go unnoticed by the people whoinhabited the American continent before the arrival of the Spanish."FIGURE 1Illustration of Postpartum Depression from the Shaft-Tomb ComplexCulture (100 B.C. to A.D. 250), Nayarit, Western Mexico'FIGURE 3AND AGAINAND AGAIN .• •Illustration of Apparent Retarded Depression from the Shaft-TombComplex Culture (about A.D. 100), Colima, Mexico'FIGURE 4Representation of Depression of Senescence from the Late ClassicPeriod of the Gulf Coast Culture (A.D. 550 to 950), Central Veracrut'FIGURE 2Representation of Apparent Agitated Depression from the Late ClassicMayan Culture (A.D. 600 to 900), Jaina, Campeche, Mexico'Reprinted from The ~mericanJournal of Psychiatry

Phoenix Rising 27PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS'RIGHTS IN ONTARIO:An Explanation of theMental Health ActBY BONNIEBURSTOWComing to Writethis ArticleA number of incidents culminated in my writing thisarticle. First and most important, a number of "psychiatricpatients," "ex-psychiatric patients," and psychiatric hospitalstaff asked me questions about psychiatric patients' rightswhich I could not answer. Ex-psychiatric patients asked mequestions like: Can I require a mental hospital to release myfiles to my present outside therapist? Staff asked questionslike: Am I breaking the law when I help 'restrain' aninformal or voluntary patient? Though I had consideredmyself fairly well-informed on this sort of issue, as often asnot I did not know the answers to the questions asked. Ibegan asking other seemingly well-informed people ­polite patients and politicized therapists. I soon foundthai generally they too did not know the answers to these andsimilar questions. My response was to get a copy of the 1980Mental Health Act can go through its laborious phrasing very,very carefully.As I read through it, I was surprised by much of what Ifound. I came to realize that our conceptions of it aresomewhat off: the rights contained in the Act are not nearlyas straightforward as is generally assumed. Most of the rightsare accompanied by a long list of exceptions, often to thepoint of making die right itself ineffectual. There are rightsthat are generally assumed to be there which are not there.There are rights that are there that most people do not knowabout. There are detailed avenues of appeal that most of ushave had only a vague sense of. There are rights that havenot yet come into effect but allegedly will come into effect.Thinking about it and realizing that I had just given myself agood grounding in the Act, I considered writing somethingon it. My next thought was: there's no need. When theadvocacy offices come into effect, they'll do the clarifyingnecessary. I soon identified this as a cop-out. The point is:1. The existence of psychiatric advocacy offices is noguarantee that people will be adequately familiarized withtheir rights.*1 am using terms like "psychiatric patients" in this articleonly because the relevant legislation is written in this language.I am in no way suggesting that you are or should be"patient." Far more offensive terminology will be coming uplater. I am not changing it because I cannot do so withoutgiving a confusing rendering of the act. This is just anotherexample of the sort of dilemma that insensitive and inappropriatewording puts us in.2. The advocacy offices may well not act in the patient's bestinterests.3. The vast majority of psychiatric patients are not in provincialmental health centres so will have no direct access toan advocate. (Advocacy offices will be in provincial mentalhealth centres only.)So reasoning, I picked up my pen and began to write.The Purposeof this ArticleThe first and primary purpose of this article is to do someessential clarifying. My intent is to clarify:1) What people's rights really are according to (a) legislationnow in effect, (b) legislation soon to come into effect.2) What avenues for appeal and redress (a) are nowavailable, (b) will become available.3) How to access these avenues.A secondary purpose is to:1) Identify areas where violation tends to occur and prosecution,accordingly, is in order.2) Identify deficiencies in the present Act which I think thegovernment might be talked into addressing.Rights Under the 1980Mental Health Act andAvenues forExercisingThemThere is no section in the Mental Health Act called"rights." What I have done is identify what are in effectrights, select the most significant of these, and list themunder general headings, together with methods for assessingthem. The identifying, categorizing, and numbering are myown. I have also used a lot of my own wording, as the Act iscumbersome, though I retained the legal wording where thisseemed important.I have affixed the term "unproclaimed legislation" tosome of the rights I have listed. This term is intended to distinguisha right contained in an amendment which has beenpassed by the legislature but has not yet been proclaimed bythe Lieutenant-Governor. Rights so classified are in theprocess of materializing. Supposedly, they soon will thoughthey have not yet come into being. Insistence on them andprosecution of violations of them will be possible once andonly once proclamation has occurred. Watch for these. Askabout them. They have been a long while in the offing,however, so don't hold your breath.

Phoenix RisingRights Vis-a-vis AdmissionI. A person may not be involuntarily committed to apsychiatric facility unless first:a) he is given a psychiatric assessment (examination culminatingin a judgment) by a physician attendant at thefacility, andb) the physician signs a certificate of involuntary commitmentwhich specifies that the person is of danger to selfor others.EXCEPTION: There is one and only one exception. If amagistrate suspects that a person appearing before him is"mentally incompetent," h~ may have the person examinedby a doctor not connected with a psychiatric facility. If, inthe doctor's opinion the person fits the criterion forcommitment listed above, the magistrate may then order theperson to be confined to a psychiatric facility for a periodnot exceeding two months.2. A policeman may not have someone picked up and takenfor an assessment unless either:a) a physician has made out and signed an application for apsychiatric assessment of the person in question. (For thisapplication to be valid, the physician must have personallyseen the 'patient' no longer than seven days beforesubmitting it.);or b) A Justice of the Peace has issued an order for theperson to be picked up for assessment (The procedure is:One or more persons meet with the Justice of the Peaceand request that the order be issued. The Justice of thePeace listens to the evidence. If he is convinced that thereis at least reason to suspect that the person's being at largeitself constitutes some sort of danger, he issues the order);or c) A judge or magistrate orders an assessment;or d) The police officer himself personally witnesses theperson acting in a way that suggests he is a dangerself or others and! or is not able to take care of himself.toLength of Involuntary CommitmentI. A person may be detained for no longer than two weeksunder the original certificate of involuntary admission.2. A certificate of renewal may be submitted by thephysician; this will allow the patient to be retained anadditional month.3. A second certificate of renewal may be made, allowing fortwo additional months of detention.4. For each three subsequent months of detention, a newcertificate of renewal is required.Rights to Review and Appeall. The patient or anyone connected with him has the right torequire a review board to meet and reassess the original certificateof involuntary admission, each subsequent renewal ofit, and any certificate which changes his status fromvoluntary to involuntary. (To set the review process inmotion,calledask for, fill out, and hand in "Form 16," which is" APPLICATION TO REGIONAL REVIEWBOARD UNDER SECTION 31 OF THE ACT." See Form16 in the Appendix.Shortly after you have submitted it, a regional reviewboard will meet to consider the case.)2. The patient must be:a) informed when the original certificate of involuntary admissionis completed, when a certificate changing his statusfrom voluntary to involuntary is completed, and when anycertificate renewing his involuntary admission is completed;(UNPROCLAIMED AMENDMENT)b) informed of his rights to have each of the above reviewed.(UNPROCLAIMED AMENDMENT)3. Either the patient or a representative of the patient mustbe allowed to attend the review board hearing.4. Prior to the beginning of the hearing, the patient or hisrepresentative must be shown and allowed to copy all writtendocuments which will be presented at the review. (UN PRO­CLAIMED AMENDMENT)5. The patient or his representative must be allowed topresent his own testimony and to call witnesses.6. The patient or his representative may be allowed to crossexaminewitnesses, though this is subject to the discretion ofthe review board chairman.7. Upon the completion of the 4th certificate of renewal (sixand a half months after the original commitment), thepatient will be given an automatic review whether he requestsit or not; he will also be given an automatic review on everysubsequent 4th renewal thereafter (every 12 months).8. The patient and! or his representative should have the rightcipant at a review board hearing has the right to appeal thedecision of the review board to the county or district court.(Get a lawyer for this one.) (UNPROCLAIMED AMEND­MENT)Right to Personal Correspondencel. Under no condition may correspondence between a patientand either his lawyer or a member of the assembly,member of the review board be interfered with.or a2. Other correspondence may not be interfered with unlessthe officer of the facility or his designate has reasonablecause to believe "a) that the content of the communicationwritten by the patient would,i) be unreasonably offensive to the addressee; orii) prejudice the best interests of the patient; orb) that the contents of a communication sent to a patientwould,i) interfere with the treatment of the patient; orii) cause the patient unnecessary distress." (Mental HealthAct, Section 20)Rights to Confidentialityof FilesI) A patient's files may not be shown or released to anyoneother than a staff member of the facility which owns the filesunless either:I) the patient, being of the age of majority, gives his consent;or 2) where the patient is not of the age of majority, thenearest relative gives his consent;or 3) the files are subpoenaed or otherwise ordered by ajudge;or 4) they are needed because of a medical emergency directlyinvolving the patient; .or 5) the chief medical officer of the facility where thepatient is now being treated submits a written request for thefiles;or 6) they are needed for academic research and! or statisticalpurposes. (Where this is the case all means of identifying thepatient must be removed before the file is shown or transmitted.)

Phoenix Rising 29The Right to Refuse PsychiatricTreatment and Psychosurgery1. A course of psychiatric treatment may not be given thepatient without either his consent or - where he has notreached the age of majority or he is not mentally competent- the consent of his next of kin unless:a) a resident doctor applies to the review board for treatmentauthorization on the grounds that the patient will improvewith this specific treatment and will not improve without it;and b) the review board authorizes the psychiatric treatment.(In such an event, the patient must be notified of thehearing; the patient or his representative must be allowed toattend the hearing and present witnesses of their own, etc.And, as with other review hearings, any party will be allowedto appeal the decision of the review board to the district orcounty court once the amendment allowing for such appealscomes into effect.)CLARIFICATIONWhile the patient or, where applicable, his next of kin, canrefuse consent to a psychiatric treatment and this refusalmust be honoured unless a review board gives independentauthorization, this in no way restricts the use of 'miminalconstraint' on the patient. With no consent whatever, thepatient may be subjected to 'minimal constraint.' 'Minimalconstraint' is so defined that it includes the use of drugs.QUALIFICATIONWhile a review board may authorize other forms ofpsychiatric treatment without the consent of the patient orhis next of kin, it may not authorize the use of psychosurgery.Consent is absolutely needed for psychosurgery.The Right to Re-examination andReview Where Your Estate HasBeen Put in the Hands of a PublicTrusteeAn attending physician may examine a patient or expatientat any time to assess if he is capable of managing hisown estate and in fact must do this examination and assessmentupon admission. If the assessment is negative, he issuesa certificate of incompetence. The management of the estateis thereby put in the hands of a public trustee. A patientwhose estate is in the hands of a public trustee has rights ofre-examination and review as follows:1. Upon discharge, the physician must re-examine the patientto assess if he is now competent to manage his own estate. Ifthe assessment is positive, the certificate of incompetencemust be cancelled and management of the estate returned tothe patient. If it is negative, a certificate of renewal is issued.2. If any six month period goes by without a new certificateof renewal being issued, the certificate of incompetence mustbe cancelled and management of the estate returned to thepatient.3. Every six months, a patient may appeal a certificate ofincompetence or a renewal and require a review board toconvene for purposes of hearing the appeal. (To set thisappeal procedure in motion, you must fill out and aubmitForm 18, which is called 'APPLICATION TO THE REG­IONAL REVIEW BOARD UNDER SECTION 43 OF THEACT.' See Appendix, Form 18.4.The patient has the same rights at the meeting of thishearing as he has at the hearing vis-a-vis involuntary admission- i.e., he or his representative must be allowed toattend; they may call witnesses, etc. In this case as well, likeevery other participant to the hearing, he will be able toappeal the decision of the review board to the county ordistrict court once the amendment allowing for this appealcomes into effect.Rights -Fact and FictionI noted earlier that there are many popular misconceptions about psychiatric patients' rights. Below is a list of misconceptionsI have often heard, together with a matching list of what the facts are. Some of the issues on the list have alreadybeen touched on - some not.MisconceptionI) If I am an informal patient - restraints may not be usedon me.2) If I am an informal patient, I can always get myselfdischarged and go home.3) If I escape from a psychiatric facility, I must stay in hidingforever because I can always be picked up and taken back.4) My doctor can always pick up the phone and have metaken for a psychiatric treatment.5) My nonmedical psychotherapist can always have mepicked up and taken for an assessment.Fact1) The same restraints that are used on involuntary patientsmay be used on informal patients.2) Your status may be changed at any time, including thetime when you decide to go home.3) If you are not picked up within 30 days, you will be deemeddischarged. You then have the rights of any other citizen.(Incidentally, as nice as this sounds, it is good torememberthat if you advise someone to escape, you are guilty of anoffence.)4) If he has not seen you in seven days - and he does not fillout the appropriate form, a doctor cannot legally have youpicked up.5) In this regard, nonmedical therapists have no more rightsthan the average citizen. Their only recourse is to give testimonybefore a Justice of the Peace.

30 Phoenix Rising(Misconception)6) If I want a psychiatric facility I was in to give a copy ofmy files to my present therapist or my lawyer, I have only toask.7) If a violation of the Act has occurred, charges may be laidat any time.8) There is no point appealing to a review board. They arestacked with doctors - I won't have a chance.(Fact)6) You may request to hav\! a copy of your files sent to yourtherapist or your lawyer. You do this by filling out and submittingForm 14, called "CONSENT TO THE DIS­CLOSURE AND TRANSMITTAL OR EXAMINA nONOF A CLINICAL RECORD." Psychiatric facilities areallowed to release your files when they receive this form ­and they generally do - though they are not obliged torelease them. See Appendix, Form 14.7) Most of the offences are subject to fines only (up toS1O,OOO). In the case of offences which can be fined, chargesmust be laid within six months of the alleged offence.8) Patients often do win reviews. As for the composition ofthe board, it is composed of at least one and not more thantwo doctors, at least one and not more than two lawyers, andone person who is neither a doctor nor a lawyer.Areas Where ViolationOften Occurs andProsecution is in OrderThere may well be others. At the very least, however, Iwould suggest people be on the lookout for the following:I. The use of more than the 'minimal restraints necessary' to'subdue' a 'patient.' Such practices as leaving peoplestrapped in stretchers and administering extremely high levelsof drugs constitute more than 'reasonable restraint' and,accordingly, cases of this nature may - at least occasionally- be successfully prosecuted.2. Police picking people up for assessment just because adoctor has called and asked them to. This happens fairlyoften and is unquestionably a violation of the act.3..Not notifying patients when times for possible appeals rollaround. As this right is still unproclaimed, of course, Icannot say that violations have occurred or will occur, but Ipredict they will. The prediction is based on what ishappening in provinces where rights of notification are nowoperant.4. Undue interference with personal correspondence.5. Undue disclosure of files.6. Administering a course of psychiatric treatment where noconsent has been given and no authorization provided by areview board. This happens often.7. Involuntary commitment without due examination by aresident physician. (People have claimed that this hashappened to them: it is a clear violation.)Places Where ChangesMight Be Argued ForThere are many places where I disagree with the presentAct, and no doubt many more where you disagree. This isnot my concern in the present section. My concern is toidentify areas where I think the government might be convincedto make changes and where the launching of cam-paigns is accordingly in order. My identification of these areasis in no way to be taken as occurrence with the legislation inother areas.1. Phrases like "reasonable restraint" leave too much discretionto the staff. Sections dealing with the issue ofrestraint should be clearly worded to exclude such measuresas leaving people strapped in stretchers, administeringdangerous levels of drugs, etc.2. Clauses should be introduced which exclude long termdosages of drugs which are in excess of the guidelinesprovided in the Compendium of Pharmaceutical Specialties.Clauses should be introduced spelling out and prohibitingcombinations of drugs which are incompatible. Clausesshould be introduced prohibiting levels and combinationsthat lead to tardive dyskinesia, blindness, etc.3. Few if any exceptions should be made on the issue ofprivate correspondence. (I.e., correspondence from a patientto somebody else should not be intercepted and withheld justbecause it is unduly rude: People have the right to be rude.)4. Clear guidelines should be provided as to what constitutesa course of psychiatric treatment. Until these guidelines areprovided, the patient's right to refuse psychiatric treatment isseverely I:!ompromised. Until such guidelines are provided,drugs can be administered for a prolonged period and called"restraint," without either the patient or his next of kin, orthe review board having authorized it, etc.5. Institutions should be required to release files totherapists, lawyers and legal workers when the patient wishesit.6. Patientsfiles.should have the right to see what is in their own7. Patients should always be allowedtheir own reviews.to at least appear at8. Both the patient or his representative should have the rightto hear and cross-examine witnesses at a review hearing. Thisshould not be left up to the discretion of the review boardchairman. If the government is worried about impropercross-examination,it.they can always establish rules concerning9. Where an assessment is being made and the patient doesnot speak fluent English and the attendant doctor does notspeak the language of the patient, it should be mandatorythat a competent translator be present.10. A competent translator should be a necessary participantof all review hearings where either the patient or his I herrepresentative does not speak fluent English.

Phoenix Rising 31Additional and MostUnusual Changes to Haveto Argue ForThe changes I am referring to are the changes contained inthe unproclaimed amendments. Pressure should be put onthe government (a) to account for the delay in proclaimingthe unproclaimed amendments and (b) to proclaim theseamendments. The amendments have been lying on the booksinoperant for a couple of years now. Everyone I talked to atthe Ministry assured me that it was "very, very unusual"indeed, "quite irregular", for amendments to "just liearound like that." "Everything is up in the air," I was told.No explanation was offered for the delay or for theseemingly confused state of affairs. An inquiry into it andthe setting of proclamation dates is in order: and the government,I suspect, can be brought to appreciate this. There arevery, very critical rights here - rights which wouldsignificantly improve the position of psychiatric patients inthis province. Just to remind you of some of them, theyinclude: the right to see copies of all written material that willbe presented in a review hearing, the right to be informedwhen the time for possible hearings comes around, and, mostsignificantly of all, THE RIGHT TO APPEAL ADECISION OF A REVIEW BOARD TO A COUNTY ORDISTRICT COURT. I am glad that the legislature saw fit toaffirm these rights, to pass this legislatuon. RIGHTS,HOWEVER, THAT HAVE NOT BEEN PROCLAIMEDAND SO CANNOT BE EXERCISED ARE NO RIGHTSAT ALL.Where to Get Help WhenYour Rights Have BeenViolatedThere are a number of societies which can advise you andwhich can give you the names of reliable lawyers. There arelawyers, correspondingly, who have a sense of commitmentin thill area and handle these cases for nothing. As lawyerCarla McKague puts it, however, there are "damned few"free lawyers around: so I wouldn't count on getting one.What will open doors is a legal aid certificate. Mostpsychiatric and ex-psychiatric patients qualify for legal aid,and there are a lot of lawyers who will not only take psychiatriccases where the person has a legal aid certificate but willhelp people obtain the certificate where they don't. Don'tjust choose any lawyer, though. To quote Carla again,"There are many lawyers who take on mental health cases,but most of them are poorly informed and subject to manybiases." Get the names of lawyers from self-help or othersocieties who understand what you are up against and whoknow which lawyers are reliable. Societies you could safelyturn to in Toronto include: On Our Own (699-3192),Friends and Advocates (247-6116) and Advocacy ResourceCentre for the Handicapped (482-8255). Helpful Ontario.societies outside of Toronto include: Psychiatric Associationof Timmins (705-233-2814), Self-Esteem Through Independence(London) (519-434-9178), and Society for the Preservationof the Rights of the Emotionally Distraught(Hamilton) (561-2118). While I cannot include it in mylist of 'reliables,' I would point out that if you are currentlyin a provincial mental health centre, another place you canturn to is the official advocacy office therein. A word ofcaution, though: while the advocacy office may well behelpful if you simply want your drugs changed, it is not clearthat it will be of much help if you are intending anythingmore radical. The advocacy officers are directly responsibleto officials in the Ministry of Health. Ergo, the advocacyoffices have an inherent conflict of interest. This flaw, thisweakness appears to be intentional. My own opinion?1. They were intended to be weak.2. They are largely a way of circumventing proclaiming anumber of the more important unproclaimed amendments. *ConcludingRemarksThis completes the article. My hope is that it will be ofhelp to you in exercising-your rights, helping protect therights of others, arguing for changes, and challengingviolations. My particular concern is that patients and expatientsinsist on the rights they have. I know that it is oftenterrifying to do so, especially if you are in a psychiatricfacility at the time or suspect that you may be again. It mustfeel a bit like arguing with the surgeon over his fees as hesharpens his scalpel and wheels you off to the operatingroom. Many people have told me that they just can't affordto make a fuss. They would be "made to pay for it." Theywould be "drugged to the hilt," etc. There is no question.This occurs and, indeed, it does act as a deterrent. I am notsuggesting that you take a risk you are genuinely convinced isdangerous or that you initiate any process you think willtrigger more panic than you can deal with. Two points,though. The first is tha, you are not alone. If you areworried about repercussions, advise people and have themcheck in on you regularly. If repercussion occurs, get intouch with an advocate: a lawyer. The second is that, forthe most part when punitive action does occur, the personhas complained informal/yo My experience suggests thatpeople lodging formal complaints are not only not treatedworse but tend to be treated better. This is especially evidentwhere 'outsiders' are involved as initiators and/or supporters(a good reason for not acting alone). In such cases, in fact,the better treatment often extends to family and friends. TheAldo Alvianni incident is instructive in this regard.Aldo Alviani received intermittent treatment at a numberof different psychiatric facilities. He was often administereddosages way in excess of CPS guidelines. Aldo Alviani neverlodged a formal complaint, though he did' grumble' abouthis treatment. This grumbling was ignored if not punished.Staff got used to the idea that very high dosages 'were called*In section 66 of the unproclaimed amendments, reference isrepeatedly made to area directors. According to this section,area directors are to be informed of involuntary admission, ofchanges in a patient's status, and of RIGHTS OF andpossible TIMES FOR review. The area director in question is"the area director for the area, in accordance with theLEGAL ACT, in which the psychiatric facility is located."What it looks like we have here is THE BEGINNING OFAN ADVOCACY SYSTEM WHICH WOULD COMEEQUIPPED WITH LA WYERS AND WOULD BEINDEPENDENT OF THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH. Mysense is that the Ministry had second thoughts about settingup the beginnings of such a system, so quickly brought in anUNEQUIPPED AND FLAWED system, that ISDlRECTL Y UNDER THE MINISTRY in its stead.Dishonourable? A travesty? It sure looks like it!Be this as it may, by all means, turn to these offices forhelp when you think it appropriate and use the help they giveyou. Just don't count on them.

32 Phoenix Risingfor' in Aldo's case. One day at Queen Street Mental HealthCentre Aldo Alviani was administered one of those very highdosages and bad combinations - and Aldo Alviani died.Later, outsiders began lodging formal protests about Aldo'streatment. Not long after the protests began, Aldo Alviani'sbrother was admitted to Queen Street Mental Health Centre.Aldo Alviani'sbrother was not administered high dosages ofanything. He was not 'punished' for the trouble that hadbeen caused the hospital. Rumour has it, in fact, that AldoAlviani's brother was treated like an absolute prince!My thanks to Robbyn Grant, Patricia Urquhart, CarlaMcKague, and others for their input and overall support inthe writing of this article.Form 14Mental Health ActCONSENT TO THE DISCLOSURE, TRANS­MITT AL OR EXAMINATION OF ACLINICAL RECORDI, .(print full name of person)of(~ddress).........................hereby consent to the disclosure or transmittalthe examination byto or(print name)Form 16Mental Health ActAPPLICATION TO REGIONAL REVIEWBOARD UNDER SECTION 31 OFTHE ACTTo: The Chairman of the Review BoardRE:(print full name of patient)(psychiatric facility)of the clinical record compiled in .(nameof psychiatric facility)(name of patient)(See Note 5)(witness)(signature)in respect ofDated this day of , 19 .(print full name of applicant)hereby apply for-an inquiry into whether ornot(name of patient)is suffering from mental disorder ·of a natUre orquality that likely will result in(See Note)Form 18Mental Health ActAPPLICATION TO REGIONAL REVIEWBOARD UNDER SECTION 43 OF THE ACTTo: The Chairman of the Review Boardunless such patient remains an involuntarythe custody of a psychiatric facility.patient inRE:(full name of patient or out-patient)(signature of applicant)Dated the day of ,19 ....NOTE: The criteria set out in subsection 31 (I) of theAct ·are as follows:(a) serious bodily harm to the patient;(b) serious bodily harm to another person; or(c) imminent and, serious physical impairment of thepatient.R.R.O. 1980, Reg 609, Form 16.of .(home address)I, .(print full name of patient or out-patient)hereby apply for an inquiry into whether or not I amcompetent to manage my estate.(signature of patient orout-patient)Dated the day of ., '" , 19 .R.R.O. 1980, Reg. 609, Form 18.

Phoenix Rising 33(form 18 continued)NOTES:1. Consent to the disclosure, transmittal or examinationof a,c1inical record may be given by the patientor (where the patient has not attained the age ofmajority or is not mentally competent) by the nearestrelative of the patient.See subsection 29 (3) of the Act.2. Patient.Clause 29 (1) (b) of the Act states that" 'patient'includes former patient, out-patient and former outpatient."3. Mentally competent.Clause 1 (h) of the Act defines "mentally competent"as "having the ability to understand the subject matterin respect of which consent is requested and able toappreciate the consequences of giving or withholdingconsent."4. Nearest relative.Clause I (j) of the Act is as follows:" 'nearest relative' means,(i) the spouse who is of any age and mentally competent,or(ii) if none or if the spouse is not available, anyone ofthe children who has attained the age of majority andis mentally competent, or(iii) if none or if none is available, either of the parentswho is mentally competent or the guardian, or(iv) if none or if neither is available, anyone of thebrothers or sisters who has attained the age ofmajority and is mentally competent, or(v) if none or if none is available, any other of the nextof kin who has attained the age of majority and ismentally competent".5. Signature.Where the consent is signed by the nearest relative, therelationship to the patient must be set out below thesignature of the nearest relative.R.R.O. 1980, Reg. 609, Form 14.Knowing Your RightsBY PAT MURTAGHA prime goal of many patients' rights groups has been toget legislation that requires that patients be informed of theirlegal rights upon admission to a mental hospital. This is analagousto the practice of having your rights read to you if youare arrested. How well do these laws work? Of what use arethey?A recent study in the American Journal of Psychiatry(Feb., 1983) examined the patients admitted to both the dayhospital and inpatient services of the Massachusetts MentalHealth Center. This institution has been the centre of controversyas patients' rights groups claimed that inmates were notreceiving information as to their legal rights while authoritiesclaimed that the law's requirements were being fulfilled. Whowas right?The delivery of legal information was in the form of abrochure to be received on admission. Survey participantswere asked if they recalled receiving this material. This wascrosschecked with hospital documentation of brochure distribution.According to hospital records all of the day patientsreceived the material, but only 560/0of the people who werelabelled with psychotic diagnoses received any brochure.None of the criminally committed individuals were given anyinformation. These result~ give proof that the complaints ofthe patients' advocate group were right, that despite the lawthe staff of this particular hospital continued to withholdinformation on legal rights from patients.So far this seems like merely another example of how thosein authority"can pick and choose which laws are to be obeyedand which not. But then there is a twist. Strangely enoughthe number of people who incorrectly recalled receivingmaterial outnumbered the number who forgot that they hadbeen given the brochure. This undermined the case that hospitalauthorities had made that the reason why patients didn'trecall receiving the material was that they were in too derangeda state on admission to recall much of anything.There was another fact that came up in this study. Peoplewho did not receive the brochure had just as much knowledgeof their rights as did those who received it. The numberof people who falsely recalled receiving the informationprobably confused the brochure with information receivedfrom other channels. The informal in-hospital channels werejust as effective in conveying knowledge of legal rights aswere the legalistic actions of the hospital staff.This is the most interesting finding. The provision of abrochure is a typically liberal response to a demand such asthat for patients' rights. It is a visible bureaucratic, documentableaction that can be pointed to for the "look we'redoing something" effect. It may be taken as a type ofprobably the vast majority of reforms in any of the socialservice fields, not just in mental health. The object is not todo something: It is to be seen as doing something. It isn'tjust that these reforms are often ignored in day to day practice.It is that, even if they were to be observed, they wouldmake little difference. Bureaucracies such as the mentalhealth industry have evolved subtle ways of deflecting activisminto unproductive channels, channels that seem superficiallyrational because of the pervasive bureaucratic mentality ofour society. Something is not necessarily happening justbecause paper is being passed.

34 Phoenix RisingDemonstration Against APAAnother very successful, grass-roots demonstration against psychiatric oppression and violence was held in New YorkCity over a 4 day period, May 1-4. The demonstration was aimed at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) whichwas holding its Annual Meeting in New York, April 3 - May 6. Previous protest demonstrations and civil disobedienceorganized and carried out by ex-psychiatric inmates against the APA have been held in San Francisco in 1980, at lastyear's 10th Annual International Conference on Human Rights and Psychiatric Oppression in Toronto (see PHOENIXRISING, vol. 3, No.1), and last March 15 against electroshock at Herrick Hospital in Berkeley, California.During the four days of protest against the APA, ex-inmates handed out leaflets inside and outside APA's conventionheadquarters at the New York Hilton denouncing psychiatric violence and crimes such as forced treatment, drugging,electroshock, psychosurgery and involuntary commitment. On March 2nd, over 75 people marched, chanted and sang theiropposition to psychiatry and the AP A. After the March and open mike Tribunal in front of the New York Hilton, over 50people packed the Church Center of the United Nations to hear panel presentations, including two mothers of sons whorecently died in New York's South Beach Psychiatric Hospital, as well as personal testimony from numerous ex-inmates.The Civil Disobedience was chiefly sparked by the announcement by the AP A that it was arranging live demonstrations ofelectroshock on two psychiatric inmates at Gracie Square in the morning of May 4th. (Gracie Square is the "shock shop"of New York State - more shock treatments are performed there than in any other psychiatric institution in the state.)Our report focuses on some of the testimony presented at the Tribunal together with an account of the CD at GracieSquare.TribunalEX-I N MATE: Asylum used tomean a haven or sanctuary, andhospitality used to mean kindness in ahospital ... It seems to me that psychiatristshave replaced priests or exorcistsin behavior modification. It's no longerthe holier-than-thou attitude, it's thesaner-than-thou. I think we have totrust ourselves, ,we have to trust ourown thinking and prescribe our ownbehavior. Psychiatry is a state tool asexorcism was once a church toolagainst dissidents. I've seen psychiatryused to~husetts.jail dissidents in Massa­N I N A: My mother died in a statehospital; she was only 47 years young.She had six children to bring up onwelfare. My mother was not a neuroticperson; she was warm, loving, caring,compassionate and intelligent.However, she did suffer from depression;every two or three years being onwelfare, and also as a result of being awidow. When my mother died (1 was16), I was in such shock over her deaththat I did not realize that her deathshould have been investigated, becauseshe should not have died. All she hadwrong with her was high blood pressureand an enlarged heart. If it was malpractice,it has been covered up; herrecords have been destroyed. Gettingrid of all the records is a way ofstopping research on deaths in statehospitals. My mother suffered a lot.She escaped Hitler only to find thatNazism is alive and well in the state"mental health system" in this country.IV AN: I'm from California where Ispent about twelve years in abouttwenty different state and localhospitals. I was given all the phenothiazinesduring that time until my lastadmission. When I had just got used tothe idea of being a "schizo-affective,"and I found out I was a "manicdepressive."KA LISA: It's extremely importantfor us to disseminate information thatpsychiatrists in Germany began todiscuss the extermination of mentalpatients before Hitler had been heardfrom; that German psychiatrists werethe first to exterminate people in NaziGermany; that they pioneered the gaschamber and the crematorium and thatthey were the architects and executionersof the "Final Solution" for theJews. Psychiatry has taken no responsibilityfor that.JOHN PARKIN: I was giveninsulin sub-coma treatment or 'subshock'in the Army in 1945. It involvedgetting you into a groggy state in whichthey build up the dose day to day.Since they didn't know exactly howmuch to give me to get me into a coma,they would continue to increase thedose until I went into a coma once.Then they would inject us with sucrose(sugar) which would take us out of thecoma. It's supposed to be "lightcoma". The effect of that "lightcoma" was to knock out my memoryof the experience of the hospitalizationand the period of up to three monthsbefore that. For twelve years, I couldnot recall that experience. If someonewere to ask me anything associatedwith that ... I would just blank thatout and I would not even know whatquestions tney asked ...

Phoenix Rising 35EX-I N MATE: I want to testify asto the harmfulness of the wholepsychiatric machine - that a personcan become a victim just by stepping inthe wrong door. Psychiatrists say thatshock treatment is a "success" ifpeople are still breathing after the"treatment." No person who's everhad shock treatment can say that it's asuccess. I very innocently went to a psychiatristwhen I was in my senior yearin college, just because I wanted to'protest against the Vietnam War andcouldn't carryon in school as usual.And the minute I walked in the door,he said, "You're depressed." He gaveme a shot of medication, and a daylater I couldn't even walk out on thestreet - I was so disoriented. And Igot shock treatment. It was just amatter of being railroaded, beingcaught up in the machinery. And I havea degree in psychology and social work- it could be anybody.Now I see that everybody is entitledto growing pains, we're entitled toexpress anything we want, and weshouldn't be punished for it. And inthe hospital, all kinds of abuses occur.I was given an overdose of medication,my body was convulsing and thesadistic attendants there said, "It'syour imagination," until a doctor cameover and said, "Hey, you have toomuch medication." The psychiatristwho suggested that I go into thehospital had no idea that I was going toget shock treatment by the time I cameout.I didn't know what "depression"was until the antidepressants, and Iwas on them for nine years. I didn'tknow what was wrong with me. It'sbeen eight years since I've had themand I haven't been "depressed" since.Don't go to these institutions, don'tsupport them. They're a business andthey really don't know how to "cure"anybody. All they do is administer allkinds of poisons or whatever they haveavailable to support their business. It'sno joke. I can't blame myself now, butI just don't want any part of their"treatment. "EX-I N MATE: The communitymental health and rehabilitation programsfrom my personal experiencehave not worked right here in Manhattan.I refer specifically to FountainHouse, social and prevocational rehabilitationprograms which are in'Hell's Kitchen' on the West Side. Andit's (Fountain House) run by socialworkers, not psychiatrists, wherepeople are exploited. I've had it up tohere with the psychiatric social workersand rehab counsellors.SHARON HARRIS: I'm fromBaltimore, Maryland. I was hospitalizedin Creed more State Hospital(New York). First I was in hospitalbecause I was on Haldol and I wasdiagnosed "catatonic schizophrenic"when I was in a coma. And I had nobrain waves. I don't know how you canbe called 'catatonic schizophrenic'and have no brain waves - that wasmy "problem:" I was dead. Later on atCreedmore, I received shock treatment,without the permission of my parentsor myself. And I was given these shocktreatments to make me forget. I wasput on experimental drugs to make meremember that I was on shocktreatment. I also had a lobotomy. Afterthat, I could only cry, I couldn't speak.JEANNE DUMONT: I'm 31years old today ... Two months aftermy father's death (about 20 years ago),my mother was given shock treatment.If we had been a family that hadmoney, my mother would have beenable to go through her grief somewhereelse and be OK. She suddenly had toget her shit together and start takingcare of things and find a job to takecare of us. She voluntarily turnedherself over to psychiatrists for help.They thought shock treatment was theanswer, and even now my mother hasonly begun to start talking about that.She has memory losses. She used toplay the piano, she can't do that andother things.Several years ago, I had theunfortunate experience of ending up inhospital six times. I went through statehospitals, private hospitals, generalhospitals ... I was mainly angry abouta lot of things that I had kept quietabout when I was going through highschool and college. I had been veryupset by the Vietnam War. I kept in alot of stuff, and at some point I wasgiven a drug that got me very high. Itwas a steroid, Prednisone. I had asevere reaction as lots of people do.That was enough to get my anger outand when my anger finally came out, Iwas pulled into hospital immediately,drugged unnecessarily at one of thefanciest hospitals. I had cardiac arresttwice. I was fortunate. I was put in aseclusion room and given massive dosesof Haldol, Thorazine and all sorts ofdrugs at the same time; they thought Iwas dying and had to rush me toanother hospital to pump my heart.Three days later, they did it again: theygave me the same kinds of drugs allunder the guise of "sleep therapy" formy anger.The abuses are amazing.BATYA WEINBAUM: I feellied to by psychiatrists. One psychiatristsaid that if I came in and took thesedrugs and was committed for threemonths and changed my perceptions,my depression would be over. It's anoutright lie! It's like I'm a survivor ofan institution in the same way thatpeople who've come back from warsare survivors. The readjustment backinto society is so incredibly difficult.People who have been through it canidentify with it. They look at you andsee what's wrong with you, and afteryou've dealt with your early problemsin childhood-the fact that your motherdidn't treat you right when you were ababy-you're supposed to come out unscathedand be recovered and be able todeal with the world. IT'S A CROCKOF SHIT! And I don't like the condescensionthat I get from people oncethey know I've been in hospitals. I wishmy doctor had told me that, and I wishhe'd told me that he was giving me"anti-psychotic" drugs - he told mehe was giving me antidepressants.So this is just in favor of all of usfinding support and the truth fromeach other.

36 Phoenix RisingCivil Disobedience at Gracie SquareA Personal AccountBY DON WEITZOn May 2nd, we first learned thatAP A was planning the live shockdemonstrations. At least 25-30 of us exinmateswere incensed at the AP A forcontinuing to support brain-damagingprocedures such as electroshock, andfor lying to their fellow shrinks and thepublic by claiming that electroshock is"safe, efficient and effective." Manyof us shock victims know otherwise.Even Ramsey Clark, former U.S.Attorney General, had told the shrinksat an APA symposium on violence onMay Istviolence. "that "electroshock isOn May 3, less than 24 hours beforethe scheduled demonstrations about 15of us began planning a non-violentCivil Disobedience against electroshockand the AP A. Gracie Square was theobviousstitutiontarget: it is a private in­where more shock treatmentsare performed than in any other institutionin the U.S.; Lothar Kolinowsky,a leading pro shock advocate, ison its clinical staff.We decided we'd block only thefront entrance of Gracie Square butchain-lock the front and side doors aswell. We also voted in favor ofchaining ourselves with metal chains,,which would both dramatize the factthat we've been slaves of psychiatricoppression and show our strongsolidarity.We decided that we needed legaladvice and support. Anne Boldt foundand contacted lawyer Aubrey Lees,who met with us and told us we'dprobably be charged with criminaltrespass or disorderly conduct andpossibly arrested, and that nom mal bailmight be required for our release.However, she doubted whether we'd becharged with a criminal offence.Thirteen of us ex-psychiatric inmates- about half were shock survivors ­freely decided to participate in the CD:nine demonstrators and four supporterswho formed the support group.The demonstrators were: Anne Boldt(Madness Network News, SanFrancisco); Judi Chamberlin (MentalPatients Liberation Front, Boston);George Ebert (Mental PatientsAlliance, New York); Leonard RoyFrank (Network Against PsychiatricAssault, San Francisco); Joan Goldberg(MPLF, Boston); Fred Masten (ProjectRelease, New York City); John Parkin(New York City); Joe Rogers (Newark,N.J.); and myself. (ON OUR OWN,Toronto). The four support peoplewere: Kalisa (New York City); NancyLindeman (Project Release, New YorkCity); Phyllis Mager (Los Angeles) andCynthia McCue (MPLF, Boston).Midmorning May 4: we chainourselves firmly to one another andform a tight, small group blockingGracie Square's front entrance.front and side doors are locked -Thetheemergency entrance is clear. Over halfan hour lapses before a staff memberor administrator passes inside andreturns with a security guard carrying apair of chain cutters. The guard cutsthe chains on the side door but leavesus alone at the front door. The frontlobby starts filling up with staff andvisitors. We begin singing protestsongs.Kalisa and Cynthia are handing outcopies of our anti-shock anti psychiatryleaflets and talking to some people whohave stopped to watch, explaining thepurpose of our CD and what's going oninside Gracie Square. Finally, a pressreporter arrives with a cam

Phoenix Rising 37ANNEB.QuU!t StrengthINTERVIEWED BY CONNIE NEIL"I just loved hugging her for supportat the New York demonstration thisMay," said Joe Rogers, a New Jerseyactivist. "I was the first one in thepolice van and felt very alone, notknowing what was going to happen.Then the door opened and Anne wasthrown in beside me. It's times like thatyou need a friend. Also, she was instrumentalin getting a lawyer before thedemonstration: some of us were apprehensiveabout doing a civil disobediencewithout one."Anne is a respected front-runner forthe Movement, whose quiet strengthbuilds trust in all who know her. Nineyears ago, at 22, she moved to Californiafrom Minnesota at the invitation ofher great-uncle. "There's little contactwith the Minnesota family now. Wewrite a few times a year, with me beingpretty honest about what I'm doing:they tend to write back about theweather. I never got to know my youngersister as an adult; I left home whenshe was still a young teenager."Anne was not always an anti-psychiatrymover. "I really bought into thesystem right from the start, believed Iwas mentally ill. I even asked for ECT(electroconvulsive therapy), but didn'tget it-just mostly drugs and talk. Ibelieved I'd spend the rest of my lifeand out of mental institutions."My first contact with shrinks was atcollege. My parents told me, 'Okay,you are out of our lives now: if youhave any problems, don't tell us.' Iwas at an Iowa college on a scholarship.I felt just as glad to be rid of my parents.Then I was very unhappy, and ittook a long time to admit I felt rejected.They were also overprotective, and suddenlybeing without protection, I didn'tknow how to deal with the new freedom.In depression I made some suicideattempts-cut my wrists-just wantedto stop the unhappiness."The college decided I had to see ashrink, which I didn't want to do.When I went home for Christmasbreak, I was on Elavil and felt uncomfortabletalking with my parents aboutit. They said they didn't like me wearingjeans, that I was taking psychiatricdrugs and not telling them about it, andnot to bother coming home again. Backat school I couldn't concentrate on mystudies. Now I realize a lot of theseproblems were the effects of this drug.I had trouble talking to people, couldn'tthink very clearly, and slept a lot. Andall this was making me more depressed.So one day I took all the drugs the doctorhad been giving me because Ithought I was going crazy-and endedup in hospital."I made some friends there-peoplegoing through the same things-whichwas the only helpful thing. This institutiondiscouraged inmates talking together.One incident I rememberclearly-a young woman was talking tous about why she was there and startedcrying, not hysterically, and we weretrying to give her support. The staffcame rushing over, shot her up withsome drug and dragged her off becausethey said she shouldn't be talking to us."I was there ten days until my parentstook me back to Minnesota. That firstshrink was a real crud: they didn'treally understand what was going on,but he tore into them and said theywere responsible for everything. I can'treally agree with that. I think I shouldtake some responsibility for what wentwrong too."Back in Minnesota, I worked forabout a year and went to school andgot more depressed. I moved into myown place and there were a few moresuicide attempts. The therapist suggestedI quit my job and go into day treatment-a three month, eight-hour-day intensivetalking group program. I think Iwould have lost my job soon anyway.Every time a customer in the departmentstore would ask me for something,I would burst into tears, so I wouldn'thave lasted long. Looking back on it, Ithink it was mostly for economic reasonsI went back into hospital for aweek or two each month or so. I hadn'tenough money for food, was living in adangerous neighbourhood, couldn'tafford a phone, didn't have friends inand had nasty rodents in myapartment. When that program wasover I still felt terrible. I didn't get anythingout of it, even though they triedto harrass me into talking."It was five years later I finally brokeout of the system. They told me theyreally couldn't do anything more, that Ihad to go to the State hospital. I wentvoluntarily for five months, and leftagainst medical advice. Then I was hospitalizedin a general hospital where apsychologist gathered all the tests I'dbeen given and said, 'Okay, I'm goingto tell you what your life is going to belike: you can expect to spend the rest ofyour life in institutions, always unhappy,always nervous, never able to relate topeople in any kind of normal way.' Ifelt pretty discouraged. I'd been throughall the programs this county offeredand this was their long-term prognosis.I started freaking out, got angry, althoughI didn't admit it-this is actuallythe first time I've thought this-but Iwas probably angry at what he told me."I decided the world was such anawful place I was going to kill a lot ofpeople and then kill myself and we'd allbe safe from this awful world. So I sortof tried to kill this friend of mineactuallyI knew he was a lot strongerthan me, a street fighter who couldreally defend himself, that's probablywhy I picked him-and I went at himwith a knife while he was sleeping. Of

38 Phoenix Risingcourse it didn't work. I looked at it as afavour, removing him from this awfulworld. But it really scared me that I'dend up locked up in the State hospitalagain."Just then my mother's uncle calledfrom California and invited me to livethere. My parents were very angrywhen I went. I got a letter from my sistermonths later who wrote that ourdad wouldn't let any letters out of thehouse to me, and that when askedabout me he would say, 'I don't have adaughter named Anne.'"It turned out to be a good move althoughthe first couple of months wererough because my uncle had sexuallyabused me as a (!hild, and recently hiswife had died, and he wanted a replacement.But I was desperate. I didn'teven r'eally think about it until I got outthere and problems started with him. Itwas a sudden weekend decision. Ofcourse, when I was little I didn't reallyknow what was going on. By the time Irealized, I didn't have it really clear inmy mind. I moved out as soon as I wasable to."I moved to a half-way house run byex-inmates. But they were also alcoholics,and about every week the policewould be there about a fight or firebreakout, or one of the house parentsoverdosing. The people who lived therewere just out of institutions and prettyheavily drugged and shaky: they didn'tstay around too long. After taking aclerical course, which helped with myconfidence, I got a job. My first joblasted one day-with an insurancecompany. When they discovered I wastaking psychiatric drugs, they fired me."I ended up in hospital again, and itwas much worse than any of the badones I'd been in before: people wereliterally in chains. There weren'tenough beds-I didn't have one. Itshocked me. I realized for the past fiveyears I'd been taking these drugs, inand out of places like this, and Idecided I wasn't ever going to comeback again. It wasn't good for me. So Igot in contact with the Berkeley FreeClinic (2339 Durant Ave., Berkeley,California), which is where I first becameaware of how psychiatry abusespeople, and the addictive power of thedrugs. They help people get off psychiatricdrugs, if that's what they want. I'venever been in an institution since."I was mostly lonely, but this womanat the clinic asked if I was taking psychiatricdrugs and suggested some ofmy problems were because of the drugs.I had tried to get off them before andnot been able to. She said if I wentdown there, there were other people totalk to and help me get off the drugs. Igot off them, and she asked if I'd liketo work there because they really need-ed people who had been through thesystem as they were the only ones whocould really help other people. For me,successfully getting off the drugs, andfeeling for the first time in my life thatI didn't have to be afraid around people,that they respected me for myexperience as an ex-inmate, it reallymade the difference. There weren't anyprofessionals at the clinic."I started out on the switchboarda24-hour information and referral line.While I was doing this people becameaware I had ex-inmate experience andcertain skills and encouraged me totake psych emergency training so Icould do crisis intervention and drugoverdose management. I did a lot ofthat. You mostly let the people talk andgive some suggestions about what hasworked for you. In drug overdose management,except in rare instances, peopledon't have to go to hospital. Wefind out what shape they're in, whetherthey're alone, maybe go to their homeand bring them to the clinic and keepan eye on their pulse, blood pressureand respiration, but only on the graveyardshift. It wasn't an in-patient facility.There were a couple of pillowrooms-quiet, dim-where they wouldlay down. People who go to hospitalusually end up locked up in psychwards. It's a terrible idea to give peoplecoffee and walk them around, which iswhat you see depicted in movies: thatgets the drug in their system faster.Coffee causes you to vomit even morelater, and possibly obstruct your lungsand windpipe. Caffeine is just anotherdrug which will react with the drugSocialChange Tool for the80's... a quarterly subject indexto over 150 alternative publications.already in your system, who know how.The best thing generally is to lay onyour side, head propped, and havesomeone check vital signs for twelvehours every 15 minutes: you check skincolor and sensation to pain for coma bypressing the chest. I worked there for 5years."Then I went through a real bad periodfor almost a year in a half-wayhouse. While still with the Clinic I alsohad a very stressful job at a library andwas getting migraine headaches. Aneurologist was giving me medication,but told me he didn't think drugs weregood for me and suggested instead thatI swim two miles a day. I started thatand it made the headaches go away. Ikept it up, because it's relaxing forme-a time to be alone. I also enjoyreading, movies, cooking and riding mybike.""Anne is quite an athlete," said SallyZinman, a Florida woman with theclient-run alternative house there. "Herphysical fitness is awing, and I believeit's responsible for the good state ofhealth she enjoys. It's so easy to workwith her: she has a low-key, calmingeffect on others. I was most impressedby her bravery in chaining herself to thedoors at this May's New York demonstration.For some, this is an easy thingto do. But Anne was so upset by beingarrested in Toronto last year, shedoubted she'd do another demonstration.For her, it was a great sacrifice.""While at this half-way house," saidAnne, "we got a letter from Philadelphiaabout the 6th International Conferenceasking for donations. At theGet your library to subscribe tothe Alternative Press Index if itdoesn't already.I nstitutional subscription $90.OOIyr.I ndividualand movement groupsubscription $25.OOIyr.For a free list of alternativeand radical publications andfor more information write:Alternative Press CenterP. O. Box 7229Balti more, Maryland 21218(301 ) 243-2471This magazine is indexed in theAlternative Press Index.

Phoenix Rising 39general meeting they decided instead ofdonating money, they would send me,because of my interest (with othermoney from the Free Clinic and individuals).So in Philadelphia, I decided toget involved in the Movement. Therewere a couple of people there fromMadness Network News and NetworkAgainst Psychiatric Assault (NAP A)which are in the same building. NAPAis both political and a support group.Even before I got involved with them Iwas aware of the politics of hospitals,drugs and psychiatry."I have worked with both groups forthe past five years, on and off. Theyare two separate groups with somemembers overlapping. For Madness Ido some editorial work, bookkeeping,layout, and approving for inclusion.Right now there are six or seven on thecollective, with each person having onevote: it varies. There is no paid editor.Our money is entirely from the sale ofthe newspaper and donations: there isno funding or grants."In 1980, the International Conferencewas in Berkeley. We worked on itfor a year. It was hard, because it was acoalition and some were not ex-inmategroups, and the Coalition AgainstForced Treatment was not incorporated.I was concerned because the previousconference in that region had beendominated by professionals. After a lotof discussion, we decided on the 15percent non-ex-inmate figure."Working on the BerkeleyConference I learned a lot-but it wasalso a real burnout. I left to travel andvisit Movement groups in Europe for afew months after the Conference," saidAnne.Since so much effort was spent onthe Berkeley Ban on Electroshock inlate 1982, and the New York demonstration,Anne decided to cycle to theSyracuse Conference. From there sheplans to cycle to BQ~r~n, Montreal andToronto to visit Movement groups."We miss her a lot," said LeonardRoy Frank, who works with Anne atBerkeley. "She is a tremendous sourceof moral support to all in the Movement,constantly giving of herself, withoutever imposing herself. She's one ofmy favourite people. I never met anyonewho had a bad thing to say aboutAnne. To know Anne is to like her.That sounds trite, but with Anne it'ssimply true."Anne is very strong. That vitalforce, mixed with good judgement,good vibes and good ideas, justsmooths things out when difficultiesarise. She has a point of view everyonein the Movement can relate to."I care for her so much. With herhumanity, intelligence and genuinecaring about people, Anne most representswhat our Movement is all about,"said Leonard.So say we all.HAS PSYCHIATRYGONE TO THE DOGS?By Rev. Kenneth J. WhitmanA recent New York Times story statedthat "in treating cer"tain forms ofschizophrenia, it has been found thatdogs can be used successfully wherehuman therapists have failed."This canine "barkthrough" waspioneered by Dr. Samuel A. Corson atOhio State University.The prime qualification of a psychiatricdog is warmth and friendliness. Amedical degree is not required.In a report, Dr. Corson describes thecase of Marsha, allegedly brought tothe University hospital screaming anddisoriented and was diagnosed as a"catatonic schizophrenic" by a humanpsychiatrist. marsha was given drugsbut did not respond. Next, 25 sessionsof electric shock were administered withthe result that Marsha became"withdrawn, frozen and almost mute."Traditional psychiatric methodshaving not only failed but having madethings worse, a psychiatric dog wasassigned to the case. The report saysthat Marsha "soon began to show signsof recovery, leading ultimately to dischargefrom the hospital. " SaidCorson, "The dogs offer the kind oflove a psychiatrically sick personneeds."All this is certainly a step up thesocial ladder for animals who wereformerly employed as domestic pets,but it is not much of a testimony forthe efficacy of modern psychiatric care.It would seem Dr. Corson has missedthe important point which evolvedfrom his experiment - that warmthand friendliness can do a lot more forsomeone experiencing difficulties inliving than can drugs and shocktreatment.The experience also indicates thathuman psychiatrists have lost touchwith their patients as thinking, feelingindividuals. Perhaps due to theirmedical training and the statusmedicine has achieved in our society,psychiatrists have developed a penchantfor things medical: the use offacilities called "hospitals", drugs,physical treatments and even surgery.These trappings are part of what isknown as the "medical model" whichis simply an attempted analogy betweenphysical illness and mental conditions.The main point that usually getsmissed is that the general practitioneror medical specialist is treating largelyorganic, observable illnesses and thepsychiatrist is not.The human psychiatrist calls problemsin living "illness" and has manyimpressive (and intimidating) diagnosticterms, but these do not help achieveresults. This is one big advantage thatpsychiatric dogs have - they don't"know" that an individual is a"patient" or that he "hasschizophrenia of the paranoid type."The dog just relates to a person. Peopledo this too - friends talk problems outwith friends and marital partners talkthings over with each other, often togreat benefit and relief.If human psychiatrists don't changetheir methods of dealing with troubledindividuals, they may well be replacedby canine therapists. Dogs don't charge$50.00 an hour, they are faster to trainand they have the simple ability torelate to people which many psychiatristshave neglected. After all, no oneever said that man's best friend was apsychiatrist.Reprinted fromMadness Network News

40 Phoenix Risingrnovernen-Cnews"Stop Shock"DemonstratorsArrestedOn Tuesday, March 15, nineteenpeople were arrested for blocking theentrances to the administration buildingof Berkeley's Herrick Hospital in aprotest against theelectroshock treatmentresumptionat Herrick.ofAnadditional 150 demonstrators formed apicket line and acted as legal observorswhile the civil disobedience action was inprogress. Electroshock in Berkeley hadbeen banned by Measure T, a ballot initiativepassed by Berkeley voters lastNovember. Several psychiatric associationssubsequently filed suit against theordinance. In January a Superior Courtjudge issued an injunction permitting thecontinued use of electroshock until thelegality of the ordinance can be determinedat a future hearing. Massivemedia coverage of the March 15 demonstrationalerted many Berkeley voterswho were not aware that electroshockhad been resumed. The ballot initiativecampaign and the civil disobedienceprotest were organized by the Coalitionto Stop Electoshock.The ten w,omen and nine men whowere arrested at the demonstration wereheld in jail for about 7 hours and thenreleased on their own recognizance.Several women were strip-searched whilein jail. The blockaders were arraignedthe following day in Berkeley MunicipalCourt before Judge Julie Conger. Sincethe Berkeley Court is not wheelchairaccessible, and one of the arrestees,CeCe Weeks, was in a wheelchair andrefused to be carried into the courtroom,the group demanded that they allbe arraigned in the downstairs hallwayalong with Weeks. Blockader BarbaraQuigley announced the group's decisionto Conger, who responded by transferringthe arraignment to the accessiblecity council chambers in a nearbybuilding. Berkeley mayor Gus Newportand school board member BarbaraLubin, both supporters of Measure T,attended the arraignment. The chargesagainst most of the blockaders were reducedfrom a misdemeanor to an infractionwith a sentence of "timeserved" (the previous day in jail), in exchangefor pleas of "no contest."Several arrestees chose to be sentencedfor the original misdemeanor charge andalso received a sentence of "timeserved." Two ~lockaders, Trudy Rogersand Maureen Bei, pled "not guilty" to themisdemeanor, and requested a jury trial.The date of their trial is not yetscheduled and they are looking forattorneys willing to represent them at nocost.Following the sentencing, JudgeConger permitted the demonstrators tomake brief statements of their reasonsfor getting arrested. One said her motherhad died of a cerebral hemorrhagefollowing shock treatment, one said thata close relative had committed suicidefollowing shock, one said that someonehe grew up with is currently receivingshock at Herrick, one said that she hadbeen damaged by shock treatmentherself. Several stated that the shockdoctors were the real criminals.According to the Department ofMental Health, two-thirds of all peoplereceiving shock in California are womenand two-thirds are over 45 years of age.The rate now being charged for eachshock treatment, a nurse who formerlyworked at Herrick Hospital (who wasone of those arrested at the March 15action) stated that inmates are notinformed of the likelihood of permanentbrain damage and memory loss.According to hospital reports, a smallpercentage of those receiving shock havenot consented to it because a judge hasruled that they were incapable of givingconsent.One of the blockaders, Trudy Rogers,who described herself as a formermental patient, explained that she plednot guilty because "I did nothing wrong.Electroshock is not a treatment. It isbarbaric, like rape. There are people inHerrick who don't have a voice. We aretheir voice."For more information about electroshock,the Measure T campaign, and theinternational anti-psychiatry movement,send $1 US to Madness Network News,2054 University Ave., room 405,Berkeley, CA 94704, with a request forthe Spring issue.Therapy AbuseSeveral groups in the United Stateshave started up what promises to be anetwork of protection, advocacy andsupport for people abused in private ­usually nonmedical - therapy. InJanuary, 1982 four people founded theAssociation of Psychologically AbusedPatients in Fort Worth, Texas: theresponse they received to leafletting at aweek-end single's fair and a small ad inPsychology Today was overwhelming.Inquiries from coast-to-coast led to anetwork of self-help groups of abusedtherapy consumers. Sexual abuse intherapy and drug abuse by therapistsare issues most often confronted,although others - overcharging, falseadvertising, misdiagnosis, abandonment,sadism, dependency I cult - areof equal concern.Also in January, 1982, an advertisementthat William Cliadakis placed inThe Village Voice in N.Y.C. elicited asimilar response: phone calls from asfar away as San Francisco resulted inthe setting up of a core group of concernedtherapy consumers who haveundertaken - among otherresponsibilities - to investigate variousmental health committees, to look intopast records and procedures of thevarious redress systems, to formulateresearch questions, to set up peersupportgroups, to plan joint projectswith other self-help organizations andto try to raise funds for ongoing work.The N.Y.C. group publishes a newsletter,available for $lO.OO/yr. (U.S.)from NCPPA, 60 W. 57th St., N.Y.

N.Y., U.S.A. 10019, (212) 663-1595. Astatement in the initial newsletter indicatesthe group's commitments andsome avenues they intend to pursue:"There isJittle doubt in our viewthat no other profession-to-clientrelationship has the potential foremotional damage to the client thattherapy does. Yet there is almost norecourse for the victim of psychotherapyabuse. At present the consumeris allowed only a token rolein redress and standards systems. Itis because of this imbalance of powerand the extent of harm done that weare dedicated to protecting, helping,and educating the therapy consumerand reforming the profession.... Self-policing has proved afailure, and it is a mark of shame onthe psychology profession. In ahelping profession where openness,honesty and ethics are suchimportant words in conducting business,the lack of these qualities in theprofession's self-criticism stands out.The unusual position of trust andvulnerability in which the psychotherapyclient is placed requires anexceptionally strong system of accountabilityand protection. 'Snitch'laws, as prescribed in the state ofFlorida, would be helpful. Anotheruseful step would be immunity inthird-person complaints- introducedin California with respect toPhoenix Rising 41child abuse cases (therapists themselvesstress the parallel of theparent-to-child relation in therapy).Also needed is a change in the absurdlyweak rules on professionalmisconduct so that abuse would becomea felony. Perhaps most important,however, is a means for increasedmeaningful participation byinformed, responsible consumers."The groups together hosted the Firstnational Conference on PsychotherapyAbuse and Consumer Protection inNew York on November 15, 1982.Sylvia Diamond of the Texas-basedgroup (APAP) was instrumental infounding the national network, TheNational Federation of Therapy Abuse.SchizophrenicOperaThe almost full house attendance forthe Schizophrenic Opera let our smallgroup celebrate a bold attempt atentering the cultural world. Thanks toA Space and John Crawford at theJoseph Workman Auditorium inparticular, we were able to handle avery difficult production. The time wehad to actually produce the entireOpera was less than six weeks, so thatthe workload was enormous. Withoutthe assistance of Jame.s McLeod andCosta Ferreo from the Toronto ArtCommunity we could have not madeeverything work on time. Theproduction crew of Slivio Cerusi andWild Bill plus the help of Penny Gillierand Kathy Czuma all made the Opera asuccess. The major contributions ofArtists Lily Eng and Susan McKay werealso major factors in achieving our ambitiousproject. The cast in the productionwere all basically newcomers(except for Ron Gillespie and WarrenMoore) so we had to have a team effortby all concerned; people like MartinGreenspan, Sid Williams, Dan Antenand Anna Gruda were invaluable. Thewitty pronouncements of TonyFerguson from the start helped ourhumour tremendously - with Tony'sgreat humour we were always laughingat our inexperience, and playing like wewere on top of the world.The script evolved from over 1000pages of my writings from 1978 to1983: satire, diaries, notes, poems andessays had to be rigourously edited.Tony Ferguson, Warren Moore andmyself spent long hours trying tounderstand my mind - and to cut outthe obscurities in the work whichwouldn't make sense to a wideraudience.We decided the best tactic would beto emphasize the hu,mour and colour inthe writings ratht;I'than the entraneousphilosophical writings that are far toodifficult to put into an Opera. Once thewritings were edited down we produceda fairly rough text of sayings thatoffered different meanings to all levelsof social contact. Some of the text, forexample, refers to "voices" and'othertext real street material picked· up livinghand-to-mouth after serious illness. Thescript became rather bizarre, but ourintention was not to be explicit. Rather,we intended to keep a safe distancefrom easy interpretation. We did notwant people to think "Schizophrenia"was a simple act anyone could understand.So we thus purposely kept ourdistance and instead we made p'eoplethink a bit. We hope in so doing weopened a few eyes to the special'curvesand road switches a "schizo" mind cantake very swiftly indeed.Once the script was pulled togetherwe invented acts that were familiar tous all: especially volleyball andcigarettes which we all had in common.We also chose acts with a lot of ourown humour and thus tried to stayclose to what we knew so that we couldunderstand our actions better. As wearranged a Performance, tried tokeep our natural skills strong and preconditions'theatre' .at a minimum: meaningWith the great help of Joane Deane indance and movement we carefullyworked on simple selections that we allcould follow. So we once again workedmore on natural experience rather thanpre-formed ideas about movement.The entire production was rehearsedduring the final day and everyone madea great effort to put the Opera intoreasonable shape for the evening.Despite many last minute problems, wefinally went on stage as scheduled, andall of us came through with wonderfulease. Special assistance came fromVideocast of Toronto who providedexpert communication help. Of coursethe audience's encouragement made theentire event a really positive act that wewill all remember. Lastly we did ourbest on all levels and, we hope, put ona Production Performance that willsome day show other Ex-Psych patientswhat can be done with determination.We must thank Dr. O'Farrell fromLondon, Ted Weir from Toronto andall the supporters who came to see theOpha. Graphic Alliance and DonSibley did the posters and all of theTRY organization took part in makingour's a Professional Production.As TRY is awaiting CharitableStatus, we are still living on welfare.But our hopes are high and we areplanning a new production for eitherthe Fall or early Winter. If anyone sawthe Opera and would like to·help ournext production - please call us at 531­3498 during the Summer months.Ron GillespielDirector, TRY,TorontoP.S. Funding came from C.M.H.A.,A Space, Ted Weir, Dr. O'Farrell,(Cultural Initiative, New York) andfriends of TRY as well as from ticketsales.P.P.S. The piece by Bridgette Eng wasworked in during the last few minutesbefore going on stage: her performancewas truly outstanding for her first timeon stage.Cast: Bridgette Eng, Lily Eng, AnnaGruda, Kathy Czuma, Susan McKay,Joane Deane, Warren Moore, TonyFerguson, Martin Greenspan, DanAnten, Ron Gillespie, Sid Williams.Crew: Sivio Cerusi, Wild Bill, DonSibley, Penny Gillier, James McLeod,Costa Ferreo, Videocast.Music provided by Gordon W., RonGi1lespie.Special thanks to NOW magazine, JuneLa Rochelle, Don Sibley, C.B.C., JohnCrawford, Barbara Fulghum,andSertia Bopana.

42 Phoenix RisingEuropean and North AmericanSelf-Help Movements:Some Contrastsby GUSTAVE A. DE COCQAs members of a self-help group of ex-psychiatric inmates,we have been baffled by the extent to which not only ourown efforts as a group but those of many other groups sympatheticto us, are ignored, rendered ineffective and discredited- if not simply co-opted. Now and again by somenice twist in understanding we are even "credited" withcausing or furthering the very injustices and inhumanitieswhich we work to expose and ameliorate! (See tlie letter byDr. Lawrence Kotkas in our "Write On" section.)When we have tried to understand what has frustrated usas a group, we have become conscious again of - what ishardly news to us - those same forces at work that have sofrustrated us as individuals. Above all, we see the high valueplaced on conformity in our culture, the many mechanismsand sanctions reinforcing it, and - correlative with this ­the very low level of tolerance for any sign of "difference"or, in fact, change in either individuals or small groups. RuthCooperstock, for example, commented in her study of thesocial rationale for providing sedative drugs in such massivequantities, especially to women,Clearly many of the anxieties and stresses brought tophysicians today are the result of work pressures, poormarriages, inadequate housing, underemployment andthe like. By defining these problems as inherent in theindividual, we tend to see pharmacological solutions asacceptable, and certainly easier than long term socialsolutions.We suspect that the same onus - and denial and isolatioo- is placed on small self-help groups such as ours in thissociety. And with the same lack of broader understanding ­or long-term benefit to either individuals or groups or thesociety itself. We are reprinting the following excerptedchapter from The Strength In Us: Self-Help Groups In TheModern World* in an effort to encourage further discussionof these issues. We welcome all comments, criticisms andother ideas.*Reprinted from The Strength In us: Self-Help Groups InThe Modern World, with the permission of the authorsAlfred H. Katz and Eugene I. Bender, New View Points,a Division of Franklin Watts, New York, 1976. Copies of thebook are available - for $2.50 U.S./paperback or $5.00U.S./cloth - from: Dr. Alfred H. Katz, School of PublicHealth, University of California, Los Angeles, California,U.S.A. 90024; or Dr. Eugene I. Bender, Faculty of SocialWelfare, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive N. W.,Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T2N 1N4."Normal" vs. "Deviant" FunctioningIn the prevailing North American view, social welfare, likehealth, is dichotomized; "normal" social functioningbecomes a cutoff point below which people are assisted toreturn to independence and competence, but above whichpeople are thought to be able to maintain themselves and togrow and develop through their own resources. In theWestern European view, on the other hand, social welfare isseen as an open-ended continuum, on which any individualmay at some time need to draw for his own level of creativeand abundant life.Thus, it may be said that the European Weltanschauung iscomprehensive and concerns itself with the total structure ofsociety. It includes the following ideas: (1) social welfare, asa state of social well-being, is viewed as an open-ended ideal,applicable to the population as a whole; (2) social services areseen as society's obligation to itself, and hence, as comprehensiveand universal; (3) social work practice stresses thehuman and compassionate approach of letting people growto develop their own potentials, rather than the interventionof professional experts. In contrast, in North America thedominant approach is that professional "experts" shouldhelp people cope, to attain or regain a "normal" level offunctioning.Related to these themes are contrasting North Americanand Western European views of the nature of publicvoluntaryrelationships. Broadly speaking, in NorthAmerica the welfare activities of government are seen as antitheticalto those in the private or nongovernmental sector. Inconsequence, voluntary citizen participation is viewed as anideological necessity, one that preserves a particular weay oflife, or shores up a particular political system. But inWestern Europe this relationship is seen as essentiallycooperative and complementary; voluntary citizen participationis evaluated in terms of the pragmatic benefits thatmight accrue.The American view is predicated on a value orientationthat holds the individual and his family responsible for thesocial ills that befall them. These ills must be cured, alleviated,or ameliorated primarily by the individual himself; byhis relatives and friends only to the extent that the individualcannot cope. Society, through its agents in the public sector,may intervene only when other means have failed. If onelooks at self-help organizations in North America from thisperspective, it is not surprising that they have been essentiallyindividually oriented, have not traditionally securedstate or public support, and are considered essentially antitheticalto government ventures.On the other hand, in Western Europe it is held that thesocial ills befalling the individual arise from a faulty societalstructure, thus placing the 'burden of responsibility forameliorating or curing these ills on society as a whole. If thephenomenon of self-help is viewed from this perspective, it isnot surprising that in Western European countries much ojthe self-help undertaking is not only sanctioned bygovernment, but is actually encouraged and in many waysincorporated into the existing political structure.\The self-help group of Europe is able to concentrate on theway in which social programs can best be carried out: there islittle conflict over goals or what is conducive to people's

Phoenix Rising 43well-being. In contrast, self-help groups in North Americahave to concentrate on changing social values and publicattitudes in order to establish the validity of their programsin the first place. This results in a continuous battle; theachievement of a particular piece of legislation does notnecessarily mean a change in social values and attitudes, butonly a reluctant giving way on one point and a concomitantstiffening on others. It may be that in a pluralistic society ­as both countries on the North American continent claim tobe - agreement on the principles of a social philosophy forgeneral well-being cannot be reached. But it is tragic andwasteful that much effort is spent on winning hard-foughtsingular campaigns, while the total victory remains elusive.This point may be illustrated further by a different type ofself-help organization: the political activist.In the last several decades the leading countries of WesternEurope - the Netherlands, the Federal Republic ofGermany, Denmark, and Great Britain, among them - haveall experienced tremendous changes starting with theeconomic crisis of the thirties and followed by World WarII and its massive consequences. In each of these countriesthe pressure of events necessitated the creation of far moreenlightened and far-reaching social policies than had existedpreviously.The degree to which social policy has been translated intosocial services, as well as the kind and extent of professionalismin social practice, varies in each country. Yet therecan be no doubt that the concept of social welfare, as aguarantee of well-being for all citizens, is much more firmlyestablished in these Western European societies than inNorth America. For diverse reasons - including the initialprocesses of immigration and the Protestant ethic that emphasizesthe individual's responsibility for achievementthrough his own efforts - the state in North America hasbeen seen as essentially antithetical, or at best neutral, in theindividual's striving to achieve "the good life."Conversely, in Western Europe the reciprocal relationshipcepted social services in the countries of Western Europe inurban transportation, poverty, and so on. It marshals aIn contrast, "multi-concern" or "multi-focus" self-helpgroup goals toward internal maintenance. Groups of this typereflected in all social institutions.Thus we find sweeping, comprehensive, and generally acceptedsocial services in the countries of Western Europe incontrast to those of North America. The climate of opinionin the United States and Canada is geared to the acceptanceand provision of social services where there has been a clearbreakdown of social functioning according to preconceivednorms; to intervene in those cases where the individual,. as aresult of misfortune or accident, is not reaching his potentialby his own efforts. In contrast, Western European programsgenerally address individuals or groups who may havesuffered a breakdown in social functioning. WesternEuropean societies accept the responsibility to provideopportunities for the individual to develop his potentials,rather than reluctantly picking up the pieces when all otherefforts have failed.In spite of widespread social changes in the 1960's thecountries of North America still view the individual as responsiblefor his own destiny and development. It is true thatthe social welfare measures in North America had their rootsin Great Britain, in a penal code that protected the propertyrights of the non-poor, was severe in its punishment, and wasrarely tempted by mercy. Thus, social service programs in theUnited States and Canada are often punitive in nature, e.g.:restrictive residence laws; emphasis on retribution incorrectional and penal institutions; the belief that theunmarried mother should relinquish her child; cutting ofallowances to unmarried mothers who have a second orthird "illegitimate" child; close scrutiny of public assistancerecipients; the encirclement of minority groups either onrural reservations or in urban ghettos.Drawing this contrast does not imply that there are no restrictionson social welfare services in Europe, or that inNorth America there is no support for the reform andliberalization of welfare programs. But it seems clear that theclimate of opinion in Western Europe encourages thedevelopment of comprehensive services, which aim tosupport the potential of people in general, rather than atsalvaging particularunfortunate.groups of the underprivileged orA distinction can be made between the self-help groupmore or less homogeneous in its membership, which focuseson a single concern, and the heterogeneously composed selfhelpgroup, which may have many focuses of concern. The'former concentrates on separate issues such as racial discrimination,housing, the war in Vietnam, air pollution,urban transportation, poverty, and so on. It marshals agood deal of commitment around its goal and often displaysan initial spurt of energy and activity which rapidly peaks,then may diminish considerably. The diminution does notnecessarily spell the disappearance of the group, but oftenresults in a lessening of the initial drives and a shifting ofgroup goals toward internal maintenance. Groups of this typeseem more prevalent on the North American continent thanin Western Europe.In contrast, "multi-concern" or "multi-focus" self-helpgroups have broader social-philosophical goals, under whichnumerous issues can be subsumed. Such goals might includeimproving the quality of life or the humanization of atechnocratically oriented society. Many self-help groups ofthis type are found in Europe. Both the earlier Provo and thepresent Kabouter movement in the Netherlands are cases inpoint. These Dutch groups started as protest movementsagainst the' dehumanization of society, but in contrast to theHippie and Yippie movements in North America, which seemto have withdrawn from the political scene, the Kaboutermovement has remained politically active to the extent that itnow has members elected on both the local and nationallevels of government.On the North American continent, the single-focus selfhelpgroups often become isolated as social deviants. Incontrast, in Western Europe, where the band on what is considered"normalcy" is broader, the single-focus groups arenot considered as outcasts. Male homosexuality is an example.Despite Prime Minister Trudeau's comment that"government does not have a place in the bedrooms of thenation," there is still a vast gulf between the social acceptanceof homophile organizations in North America andin Europe. For example, the Dutch homophile group requested- and was granted - a royal charter for thesocietyIIn Western Europe, such self-help groups as homosexualsor ex-alcoholics, ex-drug addicts or ex-criminals, warprotesters or anti-royalists are less stigmatized as"crackpots" or "social deviants," and consequently are lessalienated from prevailing political organizations andstructures than in North America. Disadvantaged groups inWestern Europe have more access to social policy formulationand social planning processes than do their counterpartsin North America.In a milieu where basic social responsibility for the wellbeingof all members of society is not controversial, the selfhelpgroups in Western Europe seem able to achieve thechanges needed for the fulfillment of their goals. Visible andexternal protest activities do not seem essential to attainmentof their goals. In North America, where a social philosophythat asserts society's responsibility for public well-being isstill debatable, the self-help groups continue to be seen asgadflies, annoying to be sure, but in the long run, easily dealtwith by co-optation or suppression.

44 Phoenix RisingLbeBOo~aJORrTJ LaRDSSCREW - A Guard's View of BridgewaterState Hospital, by Tom Ryanwith Bob Casey, 1981, South EndPress, Boston, MA. 161 pgs., $7.00.REVIEWED BY CONNIE NEILScrew has been well reviewed recentlyin the alternative press. We addPHOENIX's voice in praise of thisscathing indictment of the Bridgewater,Massachusetts prison. This book is astrong reminder that public complacencyallows hell-holes like this to exist.Anyone who saw the shocking 1967film Titicut Follies (see Phoenix, Vol.3, No.2) knows reforms are needed ininstitutions - and Bridgewater is onlyone of several mentioned in JudiChamberlin's epilogue.As a result of the savage abuses thatcame to light in Titicut Follies, a new"hospital" was built. Tom Ryan tellshis experiences at the State Hospital asa student volunteer an9 then guardbetween 1972 and 1975 working in boththe old and new "hospital." As theinhumane treatment was built into thesystem and not a result of inhabiting aparticular building, the abuses continuedwith several new sadisticwrinkles - using the intercom in cellsto simulate "hearing voices", makingprisoners locked up without toiletfacilities wait for the three-man "pisscall" detail to come from anotherbuilding (at least the old building providedpiss pots) ... In any case, the newtrendy facilities designed to providerelief and training to inmates wereunequipped - and only opened forpublic tours.Regardless of what crimes or deviantbehaviour were committed to causethese men to be locked away fromsociety - and many records weremissing - the brutal treatment madeno pretense at rehabilitation, except inpublic speeches to the effect that"Everyone helps to put the men backon the street in good shape."What Ryan relates in blunt, unembellishedstyle are inmates' stories andincidents he witnessed which movedhim to try to make changes - totreat inmates humanely, tell visitorshow the superintendents' tours weresnow jobs, lecturing to college psychclasses, suggest better systems-all tono avail. His stories have the ring oftruth that plain talk has, and they'refilled with atrocities. One guard goadeda naive fellow into gouging out firstone eye, then the other. Not satisfiedwith mere blindness, he suggested ­when the inmate complained that hecouldn't see - that the glassreplacements were in backwards and(you guessed it) he dug them out againwith a small bloodied branch.Well, you say, "Those are theguards, who only need a high schooldiploma to qualify for employment.What of the professional staff?" Notherapy was observed to take place.Inept nurses didn't care if theirbandages for pus-swollen wounds hitthe mark or not. Doctors withbloodshot eyes and jittery hands tookan hour to crudely stitch a palmwound. The chief doctor was notlicensed to practice psychiatry or evengeneral medicine in massachusetts.Lawyers at transfer hearings wentthrough the motions of defense withouteven consulting with their inmateclients.Any attempt to inform inmates oftheir rights, like the Mental PatientsLiberation Front pamphlet given out bya volunteer teacher, found the teacherbarred and search parties formed toremove any remaining pamphlets. Therights information was considered thework of outside agitators. Memos wereposted warning staff of outside"Hitlerian techniques" of"sociopathic individuals outside" andsuggesting bloodshed as their aim ­and embarrassment to the "hospital."Because Ryan "fraternized" - read,spoke to - the inmates and refused tosavage them, he was exposed to discriminationby other staff: notes on hispersonal record; a guard's vehiclespeeding down on him - on foot ­one dark night; false accusations ofsleeping on duty; harrassing calls by ateenage girl to compromise him. Whenfinally he was suckered into "helping"in a brutal inmate beating, Ryanresigned.It is important to point out that theresponsibility for unhealthy buildings,forced drugging and sadism lies witheach and everyone of us. The disproportionatenumber of poor and blackpeople imprisoned indefinitely - sometimesfor no crime, but for"observation" - point to the necessityfor radical reforms in a system that usescatch phrases like "law and order" and"public safety" to destroy people.With stress, or under certain sets of circumstances- you could be next.cpf

Phoenix Rising 45The Mind ManipulatorsBy Alan W. Sheflin andEdward M. Opton, Jr.New York: Paddington Press, 1978.539 pp.REVIEWED BYDAVID L. RICHMAN,M.D.Can we control the controllers???"Lobotomy, psychosurgery, electricalstimulation of the brain, castration,brainwashing, hypnosis, behavior modification-thelist of techniques forgaining control of the mind of anotheris quite substantial. Left unchecked, thelist will continue to expand, and thetechniques already on it will reach ahigher degree of efficiency. It is againstthat possibility that we have written thisbook. "(p. 10)The basic issue of control is of paramountimportance in all aspects ofhuman existence; whether it be the internal"self," or of a prison. Over thelast three hundred years InstitutionalPsychiatry has become the final tool ofenforced control over those who do nottow the socially-approved line and demonstrate"appropriate" self-control.Paralleling this "war" against the sociallydifferent is the seemingly endlesspolitical! economic I military struggle forpower via control over natural andhuman resources (power = control =power). In this domain of might-versusmightand spy-versus-spy the ability tobrak the self-control of one's enemybothindividual and in mass-for purposesof gaining mental and physicaldominance is a highly prized objectiveand dovetails with similar goals basic tothe coercive and crushing nature ofpsychiatry.Alan Scheflin and Edward Optonhave done an invaluable job in collectinga wealth of relatively obscure informationthat clearly documents the vileabuses of human beings by the militaryintelligence-psychiatricaxis. The generalsubject of mind control, the relationshipbetween brain function and thepowers~ of mind-spirit-individual, andsuch issues as brainwashing, hypnotic(whether concerning Jonestown, PattyHearst, or prisoners-of-war or ofpsychiatry)is not an easy task to tackle.The authors specifically choose not todeal with the at least equally sinisterand even more ubiquitous psychotropicdrugs (tranquilizers I depressants, suchas Thorazine, Prolixin, Haldol, Valium,and lithium) or behaviour modifica-tion(for example, token economy and aversion"therapy").Under the chapter heading, "Launderingthe Mind," the authors debunkthe concept of "brainwashing," itsbasic mythology and cold-war roots,and then examine American POWs inKorea, the Manson "family," PattyHearst, religious cults, and the government'sinterest in these phenomena.After a slow start (to me anyway), theymove on to an engrossing documentationof the rise of Psychochemical Warfare("Tampering with the Mind") viaCIA-psychiatric covert operations, suchas Bluebird, Artichoke, MK Ultra, MKNaomi, involving the administration ofvarious exotic psychoactive drugs (such'as LSD, mescaline, belladonna, cannabis)to unwilling, often unsuspecting,individuals. The authors combine thetragic personal stories of some of thevictims, including Harold Bauer, Dr.Frank Olson, and .lames Christensen,with detailed evideltce exposing the tiesbetween CIA-military operators andinstitutional psychiatrists, including thenotorious "Jolly" West, Sidney Gottlieb,and Robert H~ath.The book contains well-thought-outchapters on psychosurgery ("Amputatingthe Mind"), electroshock("Blowing the Mind"), electrical stimulationof the brain ("Re-wiring theMind"), sexual-control drugs ("Castratingthe Mind "), hypnotic control for.political purposes, as popularized in thenovel THE MANCHURIAN CAN­DIDATE ("Robotizing the Mind"),and concludes on an up-beat note witha positive vision for the future (" Assertingthe Mind").While the authors clearly expose thedespicable involvement of psychiatry inall these mind-control!brain-destructionnightmares, they sometimes espouseattitudes consistent with the psychiatricparty-line that rationalizes these activities.They write, for example, "schizophreniawas then, as it still is, one ofthe most malignant and resistant conditionsknown to man." Thus, they demythologizethe concepts of brainwashingand hypnotic control, but reinforcecurrent attitudes toward "schizophrenia"and "mental illness, " ofwhich the public also needs to be disabused.Minor criticisms aside, this book is ofgreat importance for it sheds muchlight on the politics and technology of"the mind manipulators." Withoutsuch exposure, effective resistance totheir growing power can never be developed.The loosening of governmentalrestrictions on the use of psychosurgeryis bound to encourage future brainmutilatingatrocities Reading one nurse'sdescription of America's leading lobotomist,Dr. Walter Freeman, demon-strating his technique in a hospitalamphitheater crowded with doctors andnurses should make us realize theurgency of controlling the controllers:"As each patient was brought in, Dr.Freeman would shout at him that hewas going to do something that wouldmake him feel a lot better. The patientshad been given electroshock just beforethey were brought in ... He gave nothingfor the pain,muscle relaxant ...no anesthesia, no"His main interest during the entireseries of lobotomies seemed to be ongetting good photographic angles. Hehad each operation photographed withthe icepick in place."When all was ready, he wouldplunge it in ... He lifted up the eyelidand slid the icepick-like instrument overthe eyeball. Then he would stab it insuddenly, check to be sure the pictureswere being made, and move the pickfrom side to side to cut the brain."Dr. Freeman worked with one handand no surgical gloves, no gown,mask ...no"After Dr. Freeman had lobotomizedeight or nine people making photographsfrom all possible angles, heseemed to feel that we were getting restive,5,0 he said he would show us twoat once! He stuck one pick in each eyeat the same time! It was like a bullfight,watching the picadore stick two spearsin the bull's hump, one on each side. Itwas just unbelievable, because he startedwith his hands way up at his shouldersand just plunged them in! Then helooked up at us, smiling ... It astonishedme that he was so gay, so high, so'up.' For him it was a performance. Idon't know how the others felt, but wewatched in dead silence from beginningto end. For me it was like a nightmare."(pp. 248-249)Reprinted from Madness Network News.WHAT NEXT!?The following ad closes out the 'classified'section of July 1983's The Progressivemagazine:SERVICES SOLDJONATHAN SHAY M.D,. BUSINESS­SEASONED PSYCHIATRIST. Specialist introubled family business relationships andtransactions, work-outs, bankruptcies.Consults to individuals, banks, law firms,accountants. 141 Cedar Street, Newton,MA 02159. (617) 595-6655.

46 Phoenix RisingRIghtS aoDaJROOgSCLAIRCLAIR, the Canadian LegalAdvocacy Information and ResearchAssociation of the Disabled, is anational, voluntary and consumercontrolledorganization. It was establishedin 1982 to respond to the legalneeds and concerns of people with disabilities.CLAIR has two major objectives: 1.To ensure that the Canadian legalsystem more effectively meets the legalneeds of disabled people, and 2. Topromote greater understanding of legalissues of importance to disabled peopleamong organizations of disabledpeople, legal service professionals andorganizations providing services todisabled people.Since the spring of 1982, CLAIR hashad a board of directors which consistsof disabled people. There are currentlyfourteen board members from everyprovince and territory in Canada. Thesemembers represent six major disabilitygroupings: invisible disabilities (e.g.,epilepsy, diabetes, etc.); mental disabilities(e.g. "mental retardation ");psychiatric disabilities; mobility disabilities(e.g., cerebral palsy, paraplegia);visual disabilities (blindness);hearing disabilities (deafness, hard-ofhearing).CLAIR is committed to seven majorpriorities: 1. Human Rights (focus onprovincial and federal human rightscodes and Charter of Rights andFreedoms); 2. Right to Self-Determination(legal guarantees of our rightto make our own choices or decisions);3. Access to Legal Information andServices; 4. Health Care Rights (e.g.,right to refuse or consent to treatment);5. Rights of People in Institutions (e.g.,psychiatric inmates, "mentallyretarded", etc.); 6. EmploymentRights, and 7. Housing.CLAIR has become increasinglyactive in public education and researchfocused upon the needs and issues ofdisabled people. During the last year,some board members have been researchingmajor briefs, including oneon the Charter and its impact on thedisabled. CLAIR also publishes a quarterlymagazine, JUST CAUSE. Thefirst issue came out last February andfeatures a number of interesting articleson rights issues, as well as a specialsection called "Fighting Back" whichdiscusses some legal victories won bydisabled people such as Justin Clark.For any disabled person or group ofdisabled people, one year's subscriptionto JUST CAUSE and dues formembership in CLAIR costs $10. Forprofessionals and professional organizations,service organizations or institutions,the total cost is $22. JUSTCAUSE is free to disabled people whocannot afford the cost.There are three types of membershipopen to any person or group whosupports CLAIR's objectives: Regular- open to any disabled citizen;Supporting - open to any person, andOrganizational - open to any organization.For more information, please writeor call CLAIR: 147 Wilbrod St.,Ottawa, Ont. KIN 6N5, phone (613)231-3367, or call Don Weitz, (416) 596­1079.Abuse inHigh PlacesA U.S. psychiatrist whose clientshave included members of suchprominent American families as theRockefellers and the Lindberghs hasfinally been forced to give up his medicallicensein response to numerous accusationsthat he physically and sexuallyabused his "patients." In a hearing inMarch before the Pennsylvania Boardof Medical Licensure, Dr. John Rosen,79, pleased guilty to three of 102 allegedviolations of the Medical Practices Act,surrendered his license, and agreed torelease the four inmates who remainedin his custody.According to the charges, Rosen's"aggressive approach to psychiatry"(as the Miami Herald euphemisticallycalled it) included forcing people in his"care" to perform various sexual acts,assaulting them and imprisoning themin a basement "security room." Rosenpleaded guilty to abandoning a 31-yearoldmentally retarded woman, GayClaudia Ermann, in a Florida homewhere she was subsequently beaten todeath in November, 1979. Two ofRosen's aides were convicted of criminalcharges in connection withErmann's death. Rosen also admittedthat he failed to provide "proper supervisionor regular treatment" for MichaelHallinan, who-bound and shackled-waskept in the basement ofRosen's "clinic" in Gardenville, Pennsylvania.The investigation of Rosen was theresult of many years of effort by someof the inmates abused by him. SallyZinman, director of the Mental PatientsRights Association of Palm BeachCounty, Florida and one of the peoplewho led the fight to hold Rosen accountablefor his actions, was also keptlocked up in Rosen's damp, poorlyventilated basement. "Half of me wasknowing this was a joke. People didn'tdo this to other people," she told aMiami newspaper. "But then I alsokept thinking that (Rosen and his aides)must know what they're doing. I kepttrying to think of the good reason forit ... My whole world was turnedaround to where the nightmare seemedlike the normal thing." She stated shefinally tricked Rosen into releasing her,after he had physically and sexuallymistreated her over a two year period,from January 1971 to February 1973.Rosen denied these charges.Rosen told the board looking into theaccusations which concern abuses doneto eleven Florida and Pennsylvania inmatesover many years, that he wasnow "unable to practice medicine withreasonable skill and safety to patientsbecause of (his own) illness." He informedthe Miami Herald that he wasjust too old to be able to fight the investigation."I'm not in the mood atmy age to bother with it.""It takes just one patient to standup," Sally Zinman concluded after her12-year fight to expose her psychiatrist'sabuses and wrongdoings. But she alsoadded, "It's not a perfect justice.too little and too late."It's

Phoenix Rising 47Symptomsof LifeIn her bathrobe and slippers,she went to the department storeto buy rat poison.Strange, there was no thoughtabout selling her the rat poison,just ring up the sale,and let the lady out into the streetinto the traffic and heat,in her bathrobe and slippers,with her rat poison.She was unawareof how her belly burned,how her body had been violated.She hung like a trapeze artistby her fingershigh above the earth.The rows of clay potssat like birds at afairwaiting.to be shot down.As her eye flickered,and the light settled,she simply said:"Why did you save me?"And then fell asleeplike a child withgnarled toes and pale skin,strangely old,as if she had passedthrough a lifetime.In her cupboards,dresses and vestsfrom Morocco,and a blue satin robelike Garbo's,and other symptomsof life.Donna Lennick"The people who really understand the way psychiatryoperates know that it's a political situation. A good example:Earl Long, the governor of Louisiana some years back, wasacting ina bizarre and very grandoise fashion, making bizarrespeeches and there was a group of important politicians whowanted him disposed of. What they did was institutionalizehim. His wife had him committed to Louisiana state hospital.He knew how psychiatry worked. This man was a consummatepolitician. He fired the head of the hospital system andinstalled his own person. He was immediately released."Correction:A TLA is not A tlanta Trial Lawyers'Association, but AmericanTrial Lawyers' Association.Samuel Delaney in an interview with Allan Markman forWBAI Radio, N.Y.

48 Phoenix RisingGIVING THEM THE BIRDAn unknown psychiatrist in Toronto made the followingcomment at a special meeting or conference held in Queen St.Mental Health Centre on the Anglican Church and OntarioGovernment's plan to provide soup kitchen-type drop-insand/or halfway houses for expsychiatric inmates in Parkdale:"I've heard of soup-to-nuts. Now I know what it means."Although this psychiatrist has not come forward to identifyhim/herself, we think this gross statement is unfortunatelytypical of the comtemptuous and degrading attitude which alltoo many psychiatrists and other mental health professionalsexhibit toward psychiatric inmates and ex-inmates. Wetherefore are awarding a Turkey Tail to this unknown shrinkand all the other shrinks who have such attitudes.EmergencyRequest,~'~-'~-"1)1" "ndPiJrand !I"" fr,if' tj,f' lit/I" frIllall ,yo" i /1I'Ilow.··Madness Network News in Californiais going through a very heavyfunding crisis right now. The crisisis so serious that MNN may haveto stop publishing this year or next.If that happens, the loss of MNNwould be a severe blow to psychiatricinmates, former inmates andthe International PsychiatricInmates Liberation Movement.MNN is one of the most outstanding,ex-inmate-controlled magazinesin the Movement; it's roughly9 years old. We ask you, our readers,to offer whatever support youcan to MNN to help it survive.Cheque or money orders should bemade payable to Madness NetworkNews and mailed to: MadnessNetwork News, Inc., P.O. Box 684,San Francisco, CA 94101.THANKS!

000000000000000000000000000000000000o 0~ PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE ~o 0o .Phoenix Rising, vol. J, no. J. Boarding homes in Toronto; Valium; gays and psychiatry; and more - not available at present. 0o ·Phoenix Rising, vol. J, no. 2. Prison psychiatry; Thorazine; blindness and emotional problems; commitment; and more. $2.50 0o ·Phoenix Rising, voil. J, no. 3. Electroshock; Haidol; how to say no to treatment; a Toronto drug death; and more. $2.50 0·Phoenix Rising, vol. J, no. 4. Women and psychiatry; lithium; involuntary sterilization; battling the insurance companies;o and more. $2.50 0o ·Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. J. From Kingston Psychiatric to City Hall - an alderman's story; tricyclic antidepressants; 0access to psychiatric records; and more. $2.50o ·Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. 2. Kids and psychiatry; Ritalin; informed concent; special education; and more. $2.50 0o ·Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. 3. The Movement; injectable drugs; Canadian groups; and more. $2.50 0·Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. 4. Psychiatry and the aged; drug deaths; legal chart; and more. $2.50o ·Phoenix Risinf(, vol. 3, no. I. tenth International Conference; class bias in psychiatry; paraldehyde; and more. $2.50 0o ·Phoenix R.i~ing, vol. 3, no. 2. The Housing Crisis; Tardi~e Dyskinesia; Titicut Follies; and more. $2.50 0·PhoenlX RIsing, vol. 3, no. 3. Schlzophrema, CIA and Mmd Control; Modicate; and more. $2.50o ·Phoenix Rising, vol. 3, No.4. Death by Psychiatry, Bizarre Facts About Neuroleptics, Anti-Psychiatry Groups, and more. $2.50 0o Phoenix Publications: 0o 1. Don't Spyhole Me, by David Reville. A vivid and revealing personal account of six months in Kingston Psychiatric 0Hospital (included in vol. 2, no. J of Phoenix Rising). $1.25o 2. Kids and Psychiatry. a report on children's psychiatric services in Canada (included in vol. 2, no. 2 of Phoenix Rising). $1.25 0o 3. The Movement. A history and fact sheet of the Psychiatric Inmates Liberation Movement. $1.25 04. Legal Chart. A province by province breakdown of the rights of psychiatric inmates. $1.75o Distributed by ON OUR OWN: 0o On "Required Our Own: reading Patient-Controlled for 'mental health' Alternatives professionals to the ... mental whoHealth still believe System, that by'mental Judi Chamberlin patients' are (McGraw-Hill too 'sick', Ryerson). 0o helpless and incompetent to run their own lives." $7.00 0ofirstThepersonHistoryaccounts,of ShockgraphicsTreatment,andeditedotherbymaterialLeonardcoveringRoy Frank. 40 yearsA compellingof shock treatment.and frightening collection of studies,$8.00 o 'We regret that the cost of reprints has made it necessary to raise the price of back issues to $2.50. o 0PLEASE SEND ME: o copies of Phoenix Rising, vol. I, no. 2, $2.50 $ 0o ---------- copies of Phoenix Rising, vol. I, no. 3, $2.50 $---- 0copies of Phoenix Rising, vol. I, no. 4, $2.50 $ _o copies of Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. I, $2.50 $ 0o ---------- copies of Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. 2, $2.50 $---- 0copies of Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. 3, $2.50 $ _o copies of Phoenix Rising, vol. 2, no. 4, $2.50 $ 0o ---------- copies of Phoenix Rising, vol. 3, no. I, $2.50 $---- 0copies of Phoenix Rising, vol. 3, no. 2, $2.50 $ _o copies of Phoenix Rising, vol. 3, no. 3, $2.50 $ 0o --------- COPIES OF Phoenix Rising, vol. 3, no. 4, $2.50 $---- 0copies of Legal Chart, $1.75,bulk rates (10or more) $1.50 $ _o copies of Don't Spyhole Me, $1.25 $ 0o ---------- copies of Kids and Psychiatry, $1.25 $--- 0copies of The Movement, $1.25 $ _o copies of On Our Own, $7.00 $ 0o ---------- copies of The History of Shock Treatment, $8.00 $--- 0o 0o I include mailing costs of: 0The History of Shock Treatment - $2.00per copyOn Our Own - $1.00per copy o Back issues - 75ct per copy; 5 or more $3.50;10 or more $6.00TOTAL ENCLOSED $ _o 0NAME (print clearly) o 0o ADDRESS 0o Makecheque or money order payable to Phoenix Rising, and mail to: Publications, Box 7251, Station A, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5W1X9. 0000000000000000000000000000000000000